


It Takes an Ocean Not to Break

by kerrykhat



Category: Doctor Who (2005), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Character Death, Crossover, F/M, Het, POV Character of Color, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-30
Packaged: 2017-11-13 00:30:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kerrykhat/pseuds/kerrykhat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Nick Fury first approached her with the job offer, Martha Jones thought it was the just another step in the process of moving forward with her life. Unfortunately, the past has a nasty tendency to rear its head at the worst possible moments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** The BBC owns "Doctor Who" and all related characters; Marvel Comics and Disney own "The Avengers" and all related characters; I own nothing.
> 
>  **Author's Note:** I have so many thank yous for everybody who helped with this story. Thank you to akat for being my cheerleader and encouraging me time and time again. Thank you to Ava and AwesomeGeek for looking over my story and giving me input and suggestions, and making sure nobody was too out of character. Thank you to stars_inthe_sky for betaing this fic for me, and thank you to therisingmoon for the [fantastic artwork](http://archiveofourown.org/works/495335)!
> 
> This story takes place roughly three months after "Thor", and is set post-Season 2 of Torchwood and mid-to-late Season 4 of Doctor Who. Portions of the dialogue come from "The Avengers".
> 
> The title of this work comes from "Terrible Love" by Birdy.

  


Sitting in one of the labs at UNIT’s New York City base, Martha Jones frowned as she looked over the papers in front of her. There had been rumors of a possible alien landing in New Mexico, but UNIT’s attempts to investigate had been stymied by a relatively new world intelligence agency called SHIELD.

The higher-ups at UNIT had petitioned to gain access to the site on jurisdictional grounds, but the World Security Council had blocked them, effectively cutting them out. Given that UNIT wasn’t held in the highest of regards recently, due to continued fallout over Harold Saxon and the failure to prevent the ATMOS incident, Martha really shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d heard the arguments that UNIT was an outdated agency and that there needed to be new agencies to guard against alien incursions.

While there were times Martha was less than satisfied with UNIT, that assessment was far too harsh. UNIT was still useful, and the research they did was invaluable to understanding the larger universe. It was particularly frustrating now, given that SHIELD didn’t have the knowledge base to fully assess the situation if aliens really were involved. They were biting off far more than they could chew, in Martha’s opinion.

The sound of approaching footsteps interrupted her thoughts. She looked up to see a bald, dark-skinned man in a black leather trenchcoat over similarly dark clothing walking towards her. An eyepatch covered his left eye with scars spreading out underneath, hinting at the past trauma. He carried himself with conscious authority, and Martha couldn’t help feeling intimidated by his sheer presence. A woman dressed in a black jumpsuit, dark hair pulled back in a bun trailed him as he walked through the lab like he owned the place. The other doctors and researchers had magically vanished, she noticed, leaving her alone with the pair. Martha had heard stories about him, but she hadn’t given them much credit. It seemed, however, that Director Nick Fury of SHIELD was just as intimidating as rumors made him out to be.

“Director Fury,” she said when he’d stopped a few feet from her table, resisting the urge to get to stand up and salute. ”To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Dr. Jones,” he replied, hands clasped behind his back. Nothing in his remaining eye hinted at what he was thinking. “What do you make of this?” He gestured to the woman, who stepped forward with a Stark Industries tablet in her hand. Martha took it and started skimming the information before stopping and reading through it a little more slowly, her eyes widening as she took it in.

These readings were like nothing she’d ever seen, not working with UNIT or traveling with the Doctor. The sheer amount of power, or at least its potential power if activated, was staggering. If she was doing her math right and her memory served her correctly, this could rival easily the TARDIS as the most powerful thing she’d ever seen.

“This says the artifact in question is dormant,” Martha said as she continued scrolling through the report. “How is it still emitting that much energy?”

“We’re currently trying to figure that out, Dr. Jones. It’s an ongoing project.”

“Why are you showing this to me? I’m a medical doctor, not a physicist,” Martha asked, putting down the tablet and leaning forward. “So why me?”

“I’ve read your file, Dr. Jones,” Fury answered as he leaned against one of the tables. “Most of it was redacted, of course.”

“Of course,” Martha agreed, although she doubted something like a classified file would stop Fury.

“But I couldn’t help noticing you’ve had experience with some powerful otherworldly visitors,” he continued, his single eye staring into hers. “You’ve dealt with things of this nature before, which is more that I can say for most people. We need somebody with your experience attached to the project to monitor what effects it may have on those interacting closely with the artifact. Somebody who won’t make a mess of things.”

“So basically, what you’re saying is that you’re trying to recruit me away from UNIT?” Martha observed, raising her eyebrows and looking between Fury and the woman, who just continued to stare at Martha icily. “Whatever this artifact is must be awfully important.”

“You have no idea, Dr. Jones.”

“Oh, I believe I do.” The TARDIS could easily navigate through space and time, which begged the question what might this artifact be able to do with its power.

The fact that Fury, a man notorious in the circles Martha moved in for wanting to keep things in-house, had come to her with this information and was asking for her help was nothing short of shocking, even given her mostly-redacted travels with the Doctor.

Glancing down at the readings, she bit her lip as she considered his offer. UNIT was a perfectly nice place to work at, but there was something missing. Something that kept from truly enjoying her position here. She’d had a taste of that when she’d gone to help Jack in Cardiff, and come to a fuller realization after her brief adventure with the Doctor and Donna and subsequent breakup with Tom.

The work she was doing was useful, but it didn’t bring that same rush that she had grown accustomed to in her travels. Even Project Indigo, the crown jewel in UNIT’s current research, didn’t bring more than a modicum of excitement for her. She had grown addicted to the adventure, to the adrenaline rush you got when traveling with the Doctor, and even though she had been burned for getting too close, it kept calling out to her. Traveling with the Doctor changed a person, and she could never go back to being the Martha Jones she had been before the Judoon on the moon.

How had Donna described that feeling you got when you stepped out of the TARDIS on a new world or in a different time period? Hamsters in your stomach? For the first time in a situation _not_ involving the Doctor, Martha felt that sensation stirring inside of her.

“I’ll do it,” she said, finding her voice. “I’ll help with this project.”

Fury nodded, as if he had been expecting this outcome.

“Good. Now let’s discuss the details of your transfer to SHIELD,” he answered, pulling up a still and sitting across from her. “Agent Hill has the paperwork for you to sign when we’re done here.”

~*~*~

Three weeks later, Martha was escorted in a black SUV to one of SHIELD’s bases in the middle of New Mexico. It was a little later than she had anticipated starting her new job. The original plan had been two weeks, so that she could pack her things, settle her affairs at UNIT and transfer her responsibilities with Project Indigo to another doctor, but a phone call at three in the morning had changed that.

Martha had listened numbly as Jack’s hollow voice told her that both Toshiko and Owen were dead.

She had dropped everything and booked the next flight to London. It was only when she was waiting in the terminal at JFK did she remember she was supposed to be starting her new job in a few days. A phone call and a terse argument with Fury later pushed her start date back by a week so while she attended the funerals.

Ianto met her when she stepped off of the train in Cardiff, looking more worn than she last remembered. His suit hung on him, as if he had lost weight recently, and there were dark smudges underneath his eyes. Gwen wasn’t much better when Martha arrived at the Hub, and Jack...There was a haunted look in his eyes that she’d never seen before, not even after the year on the Valiant.

After the funeral services, Gwen and Ianto disappeared to be with their families, leaving Martha alone with Jack in his office. Martha waited until Jack had pulled out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses before asking, “Do you need me to stay, Jack?”

She would, if he would have her. Even with the excitement of starting her new position at SHIELD and finding out what that mysterious artifact was, there was no way she’d abandon a friend. Jack had been there for her after the Year That Never Was, always willing to pick up the phone when she called after a nightmare, paralyzed and afraid to move in case it was real. She knew he had been to see her family when he could to help them through rough patches. Even without that, she would have dropped everything if he’d asked her to stay and help with Torchwood.

“As much as I appreciate the offer,” he answered, pouring the whiskey and not quite meeting her eyes, “I wouldn’t want to deny SHIELD the pleasure of your company.”

“Why am I not surprised that you already know?” Martha asked with a raised eyebrow as she took the offered glass.

“Because I’m that good,” Jack said with a shadow of his shit-eating grin before taking a long drink. “If half the rumors I’ve heard are true, then they’d be desperate to have somebody like you attached to whatever Nick’s got his hands on.”

“Thank you for the compliment, Jack, but my offer still stands,” Martha countered.

“I know.” Jack paused and looked at the glass in his hands. “Remember when we were talking right after the aftermath of the _Valiant_ , about moving forward?”

Martha nodded. They’d talked a lot after time reset itself and the horrors of the Master’s reign were wiped from most people’s memories. They had avoided talking about what had happened during the year, instead focusing on what they would do next, two survivors trying to avoid touching upon past trauma. One of the things that Jack had told her, late one night after UNIT had first made her their offer, was that part of him regretted staying stuck in his past and not moving forward. The Doctor’s name was unspoken, but lay heavy between them.

It was partially this admission that spurred her to accept the post at UNIT and partially the knowledge that she would never be truly happy as a simple doctor. UNIT had been her moving forward and an opportunity to create her own identity, separate from the Doctor. SHIELD’s offer was a chance to further that process.

“Damn you for talking sense,” Martha said, giving Jack a wobbly smile. He returned it with one of his own, and they continued to drink in silent tribute to their fallen friends.

The sudden stop of the SUV launched Martha out of her memories and back into the present. They had reached their destination.

Making sure that she had the appropriate identification on her, Martha opened the door and stepped outside. She squinted against the glare of the afternoon sun reflecting off of the large glass windows of the surrounding buildings as she tried to get her bearings.

To her left, a sign announced that this was the western campus of a joint SHIELD and NASA project on dark energy. So that was the cover they were going with. Several large, sandstone colored buildings circled a courtyard emblazoned with the SHIELD logo, and in the distance Martha spied several large satellites.

All in all, there was nothing to distinguish it from other facilities NASA might have scattered throughout the country. Martha was sure that factor, along with the relative security the campus’ isolated location gave it, contributed to SHIELD’s decision to house the research here.

People moved to and fro from the various buildings, some turning to look at the new arrival. From the corner of her eye, Martha spied a man in a nondescript black suit and sunglasses approaching her. He looked familiar, but it wasn’t until he stopped in front of her that she was able to place him and her breath froze in her chest. It was Phil, her guide for part of her trip through the United States during her journey across the world, until...

“Dr. Jones,” he said, extending his hand for her to shake. “I’m Agent Coulson, SHIELD’s agent in charge for this project.”

“Pleased to meet you, Agent Coulson,” she replied, doing her best to keep her voice even and not let the shock show. It was relatively rare that she met people that she’d known in the other timeline. Rare enough that it was always a jolt to see a face, familiar and yet not, looking at her with no knowledge of had happened.

“I’ll be showing you to where you’ll be staying before giving you the general tour,” Coulson told her after a brief pause, long enough for Martha to get the impression that he’d noticed something. She didn’t expect anything less from Phil—from Agent Coulson. She needed to distinguish the two of them in her mind, the one she’d met back then and the one she was meeting now. She learned that lesson with Tom.

Martha could almost laugh at the irony. Even when she was moving forward with her life and starting something new, her past still found ways to sink its hooks into her and try to drag her back.

“Show me the way,” she answered, giving him a smile to hide her thoughts.

The tour proved helpful in distracting Martha from her memories, at least for a short time. Her room appeared massive after her apartment in Manhattan, certainly large enough for the scant possessions she had with her. The campus was relatively small, with most of the official scientific work housed in two of the buildings Martha had seen earlier. The others were offices and staff housing. Martha’s work was below ground, however, and as they descended in a hidden elevator Jack would have envied, Coulson gave her a quick briefing on what she would be working with.

“We call it the Tesseract,” he explained on the elevator ride down. “It was discovered by Hydra during the Second World War before it came into SHIELD’s possession. It wasn’t until recently that we had the capabilities to start researching in earnest, though.”

“For what?”

“Energy, Dr. Jones. Unfortunately, all of Hydra’s notes and equipment for tapping into the Tesseract were destroyed after the war, so we’ve had to start from scratch. That’s where Dr. Selvig and his team come in.”

Martha followed Coulson down a series of steps, pondering what he had and hadn’t told her. Based on the readings that Fury had given her weeks ago, there certainly was potential for this “Tesseract” to be used as a new energy source, but there was more to that she was sure. Despite attempts to wean the United States from foreign energy sources, there had to be another reason why an organization such as SHIELD was involved. She just wasn’t sure what it was yet.

The high ceilinged concrete room bustled with roughly a dozen scientists, some clustered around computers while others peered at numbers scribbled across boards. An older white man detached himself from the group to greet Martha and Coulson.

“Dr. Jones, I presume?” he asked. “Sent to make sure that the Tesseract doesn’t turn us into radioactive monsters?”

“Something like that,” she replied with a small smile. Coulson vanished while Selvig briefed her on the project and introduced her to the team. She filed away their names and memorized their faces for future reference.

Old habits died hard, and she was scanning the room in between meeting the other scientists for potential escape routes when she spied movement on a catwalk high above where they were standing.

“Who’s that?” she asked Selvig once the crowd had subsided. He followed her gaze and gave a grunt.

“Fury’s pet jackbooted thug,” he answered gruffly. “The Hawk. He’s here to make sure that this project isn’t compromised.”

“I’m touched he has such faith in our discretion,” Martha replied with a straight face. She wasn’t surprised by Selvig’s comment. A man like Fury trusted no one.

By the time they had left the lab for dinner in the mess hall, Coulson had reappeared from wherever he’d vanished to. (Her room had a kitchenette, but Martha didn’t know how she was going to buy supplies. Something told her that getting clearance to go into the nearest town to buy food would be a nightmare.) Martha was more prepared this time and she didn’t freeze when he pulled one of his trademark ninja moves to suddenly be walking in step next to them–she had seen Phil manage that particular feat plenty of times before.

After dinner and a quick visit to her laboratory, Martha began unpacking, although there wasn’t much to deal with. Some photos of her family, a few keepsakes she’d picked up through her travels with the Doctor, various odds and ends. It still felt like a luxury to travel with more than a knapsack.

Sitting on the edge of her bed, a mug of tea in her hands, Martha examined her room. It would do. It wasn’t home by a long shot, but it would do for however long she was stationed here. That’s all she could really ask.

~*~*~

Martha stared at the darkened ceiling, hands under her head as she tried to will herself to sleep. She had been at it for the last few hours, but it clearly wasn’t working.

The problem wasn’t the new environment. She’d learned to deal with that long ago. It wasn’t nerves about officially starting her job in the morning. She’d dealt with worse. No, it was just too bloody quiet.

Most people found the constant buzz of cities like London or New York to be unsettling, but to Martha, the never-ending noise was soothing. It was a reminder that everything was right with the world and that the nightmare was over and done with. This quiet, however, was an eerie reminder of her journey. It reminded her too much of the dying earth and nights huddled by herself as she moved from place to place. Even the small sounds of the base did nothing to break the silence’s hold on her.

Growling in frustration, Martha threw back the covers and stalked to her closet. She needed to go for a walk, something to clear her mind and possibly exhaust her body enough so that she could get _some_ rest tonight.

Martha made her way out of the building towards the perimeter of the base. She kept walking, past the last building, past the satellite dishes, out into the moonlit desert. The cool night air nipped at her cheeks, and she was glad she’d had the sense to throw on a jacket before leaving. She was about thirty minutes out when she finally stopped and looked up. Despite everything she’d seen, the sight still managed to take her breath away.

The night sky stretched all around her, thousands of stars twinkling brightly in welcome. With no artificial lights to blot them out, they shone in full force with the waxing moon, giving the night a warm, navy glow. To her left, she spied the white streaks of the arms of the Milky Way and to her right the steady red glow of Mars. The slow movement of a blinking satellite moved across the sky, making its journey around the Earth.

So many stars, so many possible journeys and meetings just waiting to happen. A laugh bubbled in Martha’s throat as she sat down and stared in wonder at the view. It’d been so long since she’d stopped and just _looked_ at the stars and embraced their presence. During that Year, the sky had been too often shrouded in dust from the Master’s factories, or she’d been in hiding or making her way from one camp to another. Afterwards, her city living hadn’t been conducive to stargazing.

She hadn’t realized how much she missed seeing them until now.

Martha most likely would have sat and watched the stars all night, waiting until the moon set and first blush of dawn touched the eastern edges before heading back to base. There was something calming about observing the night sky. It put her at ease and allowed her to forget, at least for a short while, all that was branded into her memory. But, like most perfect things, it wasn’t meant to last. 

Despite almost a year of disuse, the skills she’d picked up had never truly faded. A slight scuff on the dirt behind her to the right was all the warning she needed to know that somebody had followed her. Heart pounding, she resisted the urge to try to blend into the landscape and instead slowly turned around to face whoever had followed her. One, she didn’t have the perception filter on her anyway. Two, it was doubtful her tail was actively trying to hunt down and capture her to bring before the Master.

“You do know you aren’t supposed to leave the base without permission, Dr. Jones?” The speaker was male, dressed in what Martha was starting to assume was standard dark clothing for SHIELD operatives. His face, while not classically handsome, was still attractive in a rugged, lived-in way. Broken noses did add character. The way he stood suggested he was a soldier. How he’d managed to sneak up on her suggested black ops or something similar.

“You seem to be at the advantage with knowing my name,” Martha said, keeping her posture relaxed and purposefully not responding to his statement. She wanted to know who she was dealing with first. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

This elicited a raised eyebrow and a step closer from her tail. “Agent Barton,” he answered after a pause. “Or, as Selvig likes to refer to me, ‘Fury’s pet jackbooted thug.’”

“Well, if the shoe fits, Agent Barton...” Martha replied with a glance down to confirm that Barton was, indeed, wearing jackboots.

“Cute. And you still haven’t answered my question.”

“I couldn’t sleep and I thought a walk might clear my mind,” she answered with a shrug, skirting around his original question. While nobody had explicitly said that going off base was prohibited unless permission was given, it was heavily implied.

“Most people find the silence soothing after moving here from New York.”

“Well, I’m not most people.”

He studied her for a moment before glancing back to the base, his intentions all too clear. Part of Martha wanted to sit down and refuse to move, just like her niece was starting to do when anybody tried to make her do something she didn’t want to. As satisfying as that would be, however, Martha settled for brushing off her trousers and starting the walk back.

Neither of them spoke until they reached the edge of the outermost building.

“Thank you for the escort, Agent Barton, but I can find my way back from here,” she told him, tucking her hands into her pocket. He wasn’t overly tall, but she still had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes.

“Of course, Dr. Jones. But next time you feel the urge to take a nighttime stroll, do your best to stay in the perimeter,” he replied, his voice serious but with a glint of humor in his eyes. “We wouldn’t want to lose any scientists out in the desert.”

“Probably not the best outcome,” Martha said with a straight face, agreeing to nothing. “Until tomorrow, Agent Barton.” She walked back to her room, humming “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday” under her breath.


	2. Chapter 2

Martha saw the Tesseract the next day, and, as expected, it took her breath away. It wasn’t much to look at: a glowing blue cube, but it wasn’t its appearance that impressed it. It was its sheer presence, even in its dormant state, filled the room.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Selvig asked, a note of pride and admiration in his voice.

Martha agreed, her mind quickly flitting to her memories of the Doctor speaking in similar tones about his TARDIS before going back to the matter at hand. She was here to get initial readings from the Tesseract to get a better understanding of how it worked. She’d be running tests on the samples she was collecting today from the scientists assigned to the project and comparing them against the samples taken before the project had began to see if there were any changes caused by exposure to the artifact. From her own experiences with the TARDIS and the changes to her antibodies that had occurred, she wouldn’t be surprised but she’d still have to wait for the test results.

Readings in hand, she retreated to her desk with the rest of the scientists to enter them. She glanced up and spied Barton in roughly the same position that he had been in the day before. He was too far away to make out many details now, but she could swear there was a smirk on his face as he lifted a hand in mock salute to her. Shaking her head, she busied herself with her work.

That first week, Martha was too exhausted to even think about trying to find another way out into the desert to look at the stars. Setting up the lab and working on the testing procedures was intensive and sent her collapsing in bed every night. Not even the unnatural quiet of the base kept her awake, although it might just be a matter of time before things settle. She started constructing what passes for a routine here, waking up early to go for a run in the cool morning air, working throughout the day and into the evening, and occasionally talking to her mum before going to bed and waking up to start again.

Fortunately, she didn’t have too many other interactions with Coulson that week. She was sure he’d picked something up when they had met for the first time in _this_ timeline, and she needed some time to prepare herself for a more prolonged conversation with the man. If he’s half as clever now as she remembered Phil being, he’ll have the story pieced together before Martha can come up with some sort of credible explanation for why she looked like she saw a ghost when he introduced himself. It’s best for her coping ability if she avoid prolonged interactions with him until she’s built up a callus around the memories.

She had only caught glimpses of Barton so far, and then only because she was keeping an eye out for him. The scientists and the agents of SHIELD didn’t interact much outside of what was mandatory. She only spied him from his perch overlooking the lab and a few times walking around the base. Even when she didn’t see him, she still got the impression that he’s watching her, observing her like the hawk Selvig had called him. Why, she wasn’t sure, but it turning from unnerving to simply annoying.

“What do you do during the weekends?” Martha asked one of the other researchers, an Asian woman in her thirties named Hazel, in the mess hall Friday at lunch. It was a question that had been growing in the back of her mind ever since arriving. The base was fairly isolated, and there were enough agents and scientists here that Martha hoped that there was _some_ form of activity here other than research.

“Occasionally some of us will go into the nearest town to stock up for the week or go see a movie, but for the most part we stay on base,” the older woman answered with a shrug. “We’ve started an outdoors club that goes hiking when the weather’s nice, and there are a few intramural sports that play on the weekends. Mostly we relax and don’t do a whole lot.”

“Good to know,” Martha said with a nod. “Let me know when the outdoors club is going walking. I’d love to explore the area.”

“You should. There are some great trails around here,” Hazel replied.

Soon, they were back at work in their respective labs, leaving Martha to think about what the other woman had told her. She’d been hoping there would be more to do. She didn’t like having too much free time on her hands; all it did was make her feel like she was forgetting something important.

Shaking her head to clear her mind, Martha focused her attention back on the task at hand. She’d worry about what she would do in her spare time after work was over.

~*~*~

_It doesn’t work. The countdown strikes zero, people are massing and chanting the Doctor’s name, but for some reason it doesn’t work. Martha stares at the Master in growing horror as the realization dawns on both of them._

_“Well, then,” he says with a bright, twisted smile. “I think I’ll save you for last.”_

_Martha tries to run but the guards grab her, shove her to her knees, and forces her to watch as the Master kills her family, one after the other, but only after torturing and twisting them until she hardly recognizes them. He forces her to watch as he kills Jack over and over again, each time in more horrific ways. He forces her to watch as he massacres again and again when he gets bored with killing Jack, to prove that all attempts to oppose him are futile._

_By the time the Master turns to the Doctor, still wizened and trapped in his cage, Martha feels hollow inside. Empty. Like everything she holds dear has been ripped from out of her and set on fire. Somewhere, deep down inside, the spark of hope that kept her going through her journey has sputtered out and left her cold and numb. Throughout the entire ordeal, she hasn’t spoken. Hasn’t screamed or cried as the Master destroys everything she tried to save. She doesn’t know if she has it in her anymore._

_“Are you ready, Martha Jones? Because we’ve reached the finale.”_

_Martha finally screams as the Master points his laser screwdriver at her and the pain tears her body apart. As loud as the pained screams are, however, the noise fails to drown out the Doctor’s pathetic cries and the Master’s hateful, never-ending laugh._

Martha’s eyes flew open and she lay paralyzed on her bed, struggling to breathe and staring blindly at the ceiling. The echo of the Master’s laugh rang loudly in her ears as she forced her unresponsive body to move, to take a breath, to do _something_ other than be frozen in place. Finally, her limbs began to respond and she carefully sat up, doing her best to calm her breathing so she wasn’t gasping for air.

It was that nightmare, one of those damn, bloody nightmares that never seemed to completely leave her. Absently, she ran her hand over the scar on her left upper arm, one of the lasting legacies of the Year That Never Was. Her scars were the only sign that the Year wasn’t just a nightmare, that it was real and that it had happened as much as she wanted to pretend it hadn’t. Other than the nightmares, anyway.

Taking one shuddering breath and then another, Martha glanced over at the alarm clock on her nightstand and grimaced. The red lights announced in all their glory that it was only three in the morning, four hours after she had gone to sleep. Unfortunately, there was no possibility of going back to sleep, not after that particular nightmare. She couldn’t stay here, though. Her room suddenly seemed too small and the walls felt like they’re pressing in on her. She needed to go outside.

Martha threw on whatever clothes she could find, prepared a thermos of tea, and grabbed a blanket before quietly exiting her room. Silently retracing the path she had taken the first night, she was almost to the edge of the base when she noticed she was being followed. Frustration welled up inside her and she stopped, arms crossed, and stared at the rooftop pointedly. If Barton was half as good as Selvig’s nickname implied, he could probably see her.

It didn’t take long for a shadow to separate itself from the rooftop, drop down to the ground, and approach her.

“I don’t appreciate being stalked, Agent Barton,” she told him icily as soon as he was within reasonable hearing range.

“Nice to see you too, Dr. Jones. Lovely night for a walk, isn’t it?” he answered, strolling towards her with his hands shoved in his pockets.

“It is,” she replied shortly. “Why are you following me? Again?”

“Not up for the small talk tonight?”

Martha replied with a silent glare. Under different circumstances, she might have been more inclined toward banter. But she felt short-tempered and irritable, which left her in no mood for running around a question when she could go straight to the point.

“All right then,” Barton muttered, glancing at the ground before looking back at her. In that instant, his body posture switched from being that of a man out for a walk to a soldier faced with a possible hostile situation. “I’m here to make sure you aren’t jeopardizing the security of the base, Dr. Jones.”

“I’m a potential threat?” Martha asked, somewhat incredulously.

“Everybody’s a potential threat,” he answered seriously. “Especially with what this base is housing right now. There’s a lot of people out there who’d kill to get their hands on it, and even with our security checks, they could still slip somebody inside. And it doesn’t look good when you’re making late night trips into the desert by yourself.”

Martha pursed her lips but didn’t reply. It made sense, but it didn’t mean that she was happy about it.

“So, the way I see it, you have two options,” Barton continued when she didn’t answer. “The first is that we head back, you return to your room and call it a night.”

“And the second?”

“I go with you.”

“Fine,” Martha answered without hesitation. There was no way she was ready to go back inside and she could deal with Barton’s presence. After all, he had been following her all week. “Shall we?”

Thankfully, he didn’t talk during their walk out into the desert, beyond the light pollution of the base. It didn’t take long for them to find a spot to spread the blanket and sit down. Martha waited until she’d poured the first cup of tea and took a sip before speaking.

“So, did you just happen to be awake and spot me, or are you that dedicated to stalki—I mean, making sure I’m not a threat to the base?” she asked, drawing her knees to her chest.

Beside her, Barton laughed under his breath. “I couldn’t sleep, so I was taking my own advice to walk around the base,” he answered nonchalantly.

Martha glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. She didn’t know how much she believed him, but she didn’t feel like pressing him on it. The tension that had settled between her shoulders was slowly starting to drain now that she was outside, and all she wanted to do was relax and try to forget the nightmare. Barton didn’t seem to want to engage in conversation either, beyond murmuring thanks when she passed him some tea.

That was fine with her. Talking would only take away from the reason she was out here.

Just like her first night, the stars seemed to welcome her back like old friends, comforting her. She soon lost herself gazing up at the sky, feeling small and insignificant and not minding one bit.

The stars were starting to fade and the first blush of dawn had appeared in the east before either of them spoke.

“So, what’s your conclusion, Agent Barton?” she asked as she sat up. “Am I a threat to base security?”

“Do you honestly expect me to answer that question?” he replied lazily.

Martha shrugged. “It was worth a shot,” she answered, getting to her feet and brushing off her trousers.

“You’re not going to stay to see the sunrise?” Barton asked, still lying down.

“You’re welcome to do that. I, however, am going to watch it from the mess hall with a fresh pot of tea and some toast,” Martha said, tucking the thermos under her arm. Barton didn’t move, so Martha walked back to the base by herself, her back to the lightening sky.

Sunrises didn’t hold the same magic for her that a sky full of stars did. Too often, sunrise had heralded the beginning of another day on the run, another day ticked off on her mental calendar counting down to when she would be reunited with the Doctor, Jack, and her family. She had watched Japan burn as the sun rose, the Master’s sick twist on the country’s national imagery.

She did her best not to think of those days.

Later that day, after going into town with Hazel and some of the other scientists, she came back to find her blanket folded in front of her door. Bending down, she picked up the note lying on top and snorted under her breath as she read the surprisingly neat handwriting:

_You forgot to grab this when you left. Figured you’d want it back. And just because you were trying to bribe me with tea and a blanket, doesn’t mean I’m going to tell you whether you’re a threat or not._

“Arse,” she muttered under her breath, going inside her room and shutting the door firmly behind her.

~*~*~

And so time passed. Martha settled in to her job, both as a watchdog for the team researching the Tesseract and as a part-time doctor for the base infirmary. She slowly began forging connections between the other scientists, and even joined one of the intramural football teams after Hazel begged her to do so. (She may be in America, but she refused to call the game by anything but its proper name. She had standards.) Her team wasn’t spectacular, but they managed to make it to the semifinals of the base tournament before being knocked out by one of the teams the agents fielded.

“We’ll get them in the spring,” Wilson, one of the scientists on loan from NASA, panted as they watched the opposing team celebrate.

“Screw that. Who’s up for dodgeball?” Hazel replied, a bottle of water pressed to her forehead. “Bet we could take them.”

“In your dreams, Ngo!” one of the agents shouted back. Hazel flipped him off, and Team Science trekked back to the mess for some consolation beer and complaining about Coulson’s refereeing. The beers turned into an impromptu base-wide party that left almost everybody slightly hungover the next day and plotting murder against those lucky few who had managed to avoid the morning after curse.

Martha and Agent Barton had arrived at a truce regarding Martha’s trips into the desert. While he never came out and said that he had decided she wasn’t a threat to the base, he had, for the most part, stopped shadowing her, much to Martha’s relief. He would still occasionally pop up out of nowhere, and sometimes join her on her morning runs, but he had yet to go out into the desert with her again, which she appreciated.

A little more than a month after her arrival, Martha was eating a late lunch in the mess when two brunette women she’d never seen before approached her.

“Do you mind if we sit here?” the smaller of the two asked, pointing at the chairs opposite Martha.

“Not all,” she answered.

“Sweet,” the other woman groaned, setting her tray down and flopping into the closest seat. If Martha were to guess, she was younger than her friend by at least six or seven years. “You’re new,” the younger woman continued, frowning slightly at Martha. “Are you? Or is Jane’s habit of excluding everything but science and rainbows rubbing off on me in a major way?”

“Darcy!” the other woman protested, but with a small smile on her face.

“I am new,” Martha answered, biting back a grin at the women’s actions and extending her hand. “I just arrived a month ago. Dr. Martha Jones.”

“Dr. Jane Foster, and this is my assistant, Darcy Lewis,” smaller woman replied. “We come in about once every couple of months to check in with SHIELD, but we’re technically on our own.”

“If on our own means surrounded by those iPod stealing, jack-booted thugs, then yes,” Darcy grumbled into her lunch. “Science stealing too, boss.”

“I just like having the space to do my experiments without stepping on anybody’s toes,” Dr. Foster said demurely, but with a bit of an edge. “If it so happens to be away from the people who stole my research…”

“There’s a story that, isn’t there?” Martha asked, looking between them with a raised eyebrow.

“A highly classified story that Darcy shouldn’t have mentioned,” Dr. Foster replied with a small smile. “And they did give it back my research after... extenuating circumstances.”

Martha bit back a question about these circumstances and whether or not they had occurred in New Mexico roughly around the time Fury had recruited her. She didn’t know how public knowledge that was around the base, which means keeping what she knows to herself for the time being. Instead, she asked another question.

“I take it from the jack-booted thug remark you’re familiar with Dr. Selvig?”

“He’s my mentor,” Dr. Foster said, snagging a chip from Darcy’s tray. “He was working with us, until SHIELD snatched him up for this secret project of theirs.” She frowned, toying with her stolen food. “He keeps trying to get us to relocate here, says that it’s safer than having us out on our own.”

“Please, we have a small garrison stationed outside the front door,” Darcy scoffed. “Plus, like, evil villains totally go for the conspicuous target like New York or this base, and totally forget the side areas.”

“That actually does explain a lot,” Martha agreed, thinking back on her own experiences and how, in almost every instance, the aliens she’d encountered targeting London. “I never thought of it that way.”

“It’ll be a cold day in hell before you find me moving to New York,” Darcy said cheerfully. “Too many supervillains and too many damn hipsters.”

They chatted about inconsequential things for the rest of Martha’s lunch break, mostly expanding upon Darcy’s theory regarding supervillains. Both women were good company, in their own ways. Darcy was the snarkier of the two, always appearing to have a snappy comment. Dr. Foster—or Jane, as she insisted on being called—was more restrained, but still would make the occasional pointed comment that had Martha laughing under her breath.

If Darcy was scattered and snarky, Jane was a focused stream of energy. Halfway through lunch, she had pulled out a worn brown leather notebook and began scribbling something down.

“Don’t worry,” Darcy said, catching Martha’s inquisitive look. “She always does that. To the point where she forgets to eat. Why else do you think she’s so skinny?”

Martha did her best not to laugh at Jane’s indignant look and not-so-subtly thrown elbow in Darcy’s direction.

“You should come with us tonight,” Jane said when Martha’s getting ready to leave.

“Where?”

“Out into the desert,” she answered. “I need some new readings for my research, and SHIELD is the only place where I can access the equipment I need.”

“Steals-a-lot Coulson is basically using it as leverage to make Jane check in,” Darcy mock whispered.

“It’ll be fun,” Jane continued, as if she hadn’t heard her assistant. “And the sky’s gorgeous this time of year, and it’s supposed to be really clear...”

“Sure,” Martha replied. She hadn’t been out into the desert at night for a couple of weeks, and it would be nice to go with somebody new.

“We’ll meet at nine, then, out by the satellites, and then drive out,” Jane said. “Bring a sleeping bag or something warm. We might be out there for a while.”

That night, Martha met up with Jane and Darcy by an imposing-looking van that had seen some better days. She’d begged a sleeping bag off of one of the other scientists, and in her knapsack there was some tea and biscuits in case they got hungry.

The drive into the desert passed fairly quickly, as did setting up the equipment Jane had borrowed from SHIELD for the night.

“What exactly are you researching?” Martha asked, once everything was done and they sat enveloped in their sleeping bags on the lawn chairs Jane and Darcy supplied.

“Don’t get her started,” Darcy warned.

“I’m trying to find a way to recreate an Einstein-Rosen bridge,” Jane answered after a moment’s hesitation. “A—a wormhole, basically, through space. I’ve been looking into it for _years_. It’s what I wrote my dissertation on, and I finally found evidence that it exists.”

“Dear God, you got her started,” Darcy commented dryly from her seat.

“How did you find the evidence?” Martha understood the theory that Jane was talking about. It was similar to how the TARDIS manipulated space and time. But whereas the TARDIS could go anywhere and anytime, an Einstein-Rosen bridge was anchored between two points. “Did you find the coordinates?”

“It’s complicated,” Jane began before Darcy interrupted.

“I think before we do anything that might possibly bring about the Wrath of Coulson, we should get boozy. That way we have plausible deniability,” she said, getting up and going to the van. She quickly returned, beers in hand. “Okay, now we’re good.”

“It’s going to sound crazy,” Jane started again. “Just so you know.”

“Trust me, I’ve probably dealt with crazier.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Jane said, and then began telling her story with periodic commentary from Darcy. Martha listened, enraptured, as Jane told her about a strange storm occurring one night while she was out with Darcy and Selvig to collect data, which led to them literally running over a man who claimed to be Thor, Norse god of thunder, stripped of his power.

“I tazed a god. It was awesome,” Darcy cut in, already on her second drink.

Jane shook her head and explained how that had led to SHIELD’s coming and seizing Jane’s research, and her journey with Thor to the base SHIELD had erected around his hammer, which ended in his failure to reclaim it and in SHIELD custody.

“Darcy was able to fake his ID, and Erik broke him out. He grabbed my notebook,” Jane said, a faint blush coloring her cheeks that had nothing to do with the alcohol.

“It was a sign of twue wuv,” Darcy teased, which only caused Jane to blush harder.

“Anyway, he explained to me how his people, the Asgardians, traveled through the Nine Realms,” Jane continued, pulling out her notebook and flipping it open to a page. On it was a rough sketch of nine spheres, all connected by a treelike construct. “He called it the Worlds’ Tree, and that their rainbow bridge, this Bifrost, is how they travel between it. It’s like a highway with nine different exits, all controlled in Asgard.”

“So you’re trying to connect to it?”

“I think…I think I might be trying to rebuild it,” Jane answered after a pause. “There was a fight that leveled the town after his brother sent this monster to kill him and the friends that had come to find him. The Asgardians went back to confront Loki, but Thor promised to come back. Except then there was this magnetic storm, and then nothing. There’s been no trace of the energy that’s associated with the bridge, no sign that it’s been used to contact other worlds, which makes me think that something broke it.”

“If anybody can rebuild it, it’s going to be Jane,” Darcy said sleepily. “She’s kinda a genius.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Darce, but even knowing what I’m looking for and knowing what needs to be done isn’t getting me any closer to fixing the bridge.”

“You’ll get it, boss.”

They lapsed into silence, the stillness of the night interrupted by the gentle whirring of the machine Jane had borrowed.

“I’m not just doing this to find Thor,” Jane’s whisper startled Martha, who turned to look at the other woman. “I mean, that’s part of it, but...”

“I understand.” And Martha did, to a certain extent. It was similar to why she had kept traveling with the Doctor. Her feelings for him had certainly played a role in the decision, she wasn’t going to deny it, but there was also that joy of discovery. Being able to learn so many things that she hadn’t even considered before. Finding ways to become a better doctor and a better person. She always wanted to know more, and traveling with the Doctor had given her that opportunity.

They didn’t speak for the rest of the night, and by the time dawn appeared, all three were awake and packing up to head back to base. Jane and Darcy stayed long enough to grab coffee and breakfast before heading back to their main lab.

“We should do this again, but with more booze and food,” Darcy said, giving Martha a high five before climbing into the driver’s seat.

“Less booze and more food,” Jane argued before giving Martha a quick smile. “It was nice to meet you, Martha. And Darcy’s right, although you should come out to Puente Antiguo if you can.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Martha answered, returning Jane’s smile. She watched as the two women drove away in their beat up van, wondering what the Doctor might make of that pair and almost laughing at the thought.

“Quite a pair, aren’t they?”

Martha willed herself not to jam her elbow back as Barton appeared suddenly beside her.

“Didn’t anybody tell you it’s rude to sneak up on people?” she asked instead.

“If I didn’t sneak up on people, I’d be outta a job,” he answered. “Besides, if you want to yell at somebody for doing that, yell at Coulson.”

Martha side-eyed him. “Don’t you have something better to do than annoy me?”

“Probably, but face it. I’m growing on you.”

“Like a weed.”

“You wound me, Jones,” Barton said in mock distress.

Martha rolled her eyes and walked back to her room, muttering under her breath about agents who clearly thought too much of themselves.

She was sure Barton could hear every word she was saying.


	3. Chapter 3

“I’m being transferred back to New York?” Martha asked, looking up from the tablet in her hands at Agent Sitwell, Coulson’s second-in-command. Coulson had disappeared about a week ago, leaving Sitwell to run the day-to-day operations of the base. Which apparently included notifying members of the science team if they were being transferred immediately. “Why?”

“Agent Coulson didn’t say,” Sitwell answered, hands folded in front of him. “All he told me was that you were needed back in the city immediately, and that you would be leaving first thing tomorrow morning and briefed on the way.”

“What about my research here? I can’t just drop it and forget about it.”

“I’m sure between you, Agent Coulson, and the Director you can work something out,” Sitwell said patiently.

“And what am I supposed to do for housing? I’ve already given up the lease on my flat when I moved here.”

“SHIELD will assist in locating suitable housing in New York.Any other questions you have should wait until your briefing, since they’ll have more information than I do.” With that, Sitwell exited the room, leaving Martha alone and staring at the ceiling.

She had been in New Mexico for a little over three months, and while there were times when the work lagged, she was enjoying herself here. The research was interesting and she liked her fellow scientists. She was even becoming friends with several of the agents, including Barton. She liked the open space, the clean air, the ability to see the sun and the stars. She was even slowly becoming accustomed to the silence that descended at night. And now, she was being asked to leave just as she was becoming settled.

“Might as well get it over with,” she muttered to herself, getting out of her chair and walking towards the main lab. She needed to talk to Selvig before the day was over about her transfer and work out something that would allow her to continue monitoring the scientists working with the Tesseract before wrapping up her research.

The other scientists were disappointed when Martha broke the news that she was leaving, and they insisted that on an impromptu farewell dinner. Wilson managed to produce alcohol and served as bartender in their corner of the mess. Martha stayed as long as she could before she reluctantly pulled herself away to pack.

It didn’t take Martha to pack her belongings, but she was too worked up to go to sleep. Besides, there was one last goodbye she had to make before she felt like she could leave.

Grabbing her jacket, she left her room and was walking down the hallway when she nearly ran into Agent Barton.

“So, word is that you’re headed back to civilization,” Barton commented.

“For once, the office rumor mill doesn’t lie,” Martha shrugged.

“You sound less than pleased at the prospect of moving to a place where there’s actual food.”

“It’s just a bit... sudden,” Martha answered after a pause. “And the lack of details is bothering me as well.”

“Whatever it is, they’re keeping a tight lid on it,” Barton said, a smirk coming to his lips. “Although Coulson was more excited than I’ve ever seen him when he got the call from Fury.”

“You suspect something,” Martha replied, raising her eyebrow.

“Let’s just say the last time that Coulson reacted that way, he’d just won an eBay war for the last Captain America trading card he needed for his complete set.”

So, something possibly to do with Captain America. Martha didn’t know much, other than he had been a tool for American propaganda during the Second World War before the actor had mysteriously disappeared in 1943.

“You’re heading out into the desert, right?” Barton asked, switching subjects.

“One last time before I’m back in the city of blinding lights,” Martha answered with a nod. “Would you like to come with me?” she continued, almost hesitantly. She and Barton weren’t exactly friends, but they had struck up a sort of camaraderie during her time here. Martha hadn’t been out into the area surrounding the base with Barton since her first week, but it felt right that she end her time here in a similar manner to how it began, going full circle.

“I have nothing else planned for the evening,” he answered, and with that, they set out.

She had gone out several times on her own in addition to her expeditions with Jane and Darcy, and she had a favorite spot roughly half an hour’s walk away. A rock jutting from the ground alternated as a buffer for the wind or as a perch to survey the surrounding landscape. Martha tried to alternate her routes to see where her wanderings might take her, but she kept finding her way back to this location.

_I’m going to miss this,_ she thought wistfully, taking in the night sky. A few scattered clouds interrupted an otherwise clear night, the crescent moon’s faint light enough to subtly light the landscape without blocking some of the smaller stars. She wouldn’t find anything like this back in the city, no matter how hard she tried.

They didn’t stay outside long, only about twenty minutes, before they began to walk back to the base.

“My job’s going to be easier now that you’re shipping back to New York,” Barton remarked when they were almost there, his voice teasing. “You’re the only one I’ve had to deal with who seems to make late night wandering out in the desert a habit. I might actually be able to get some sleep without worrying what you might be getting up to.”

“Don’t get too comfortable with those thoughts, Agent Barton,” Martha warned him, trying to keep from laughing. “I’ll be back soon enough.”

He sighed as the satellites came into sight. “That’s what I was afraid you were going to say,” he replied mournfully. “At least I’ll have some heads up then.”

“Who knows, I might find a way to sneak in and surprise you,” Martha shot back. She still had her perception filter, and it might be fun to try it on Barton, who was one of the most observant people she’d ever met.

“Challenge accepted, Dr. Jones,” he replied in the same tone of voice.

Martha finally did laugh. Maybe she would have to move Barton to the friend column after all.

~*~*~

Maria Hill met Martha at the helicopter pad on the SHIELD base when Martha arrived, scant possessions in tow. They were quickly loaded into a high-tech jet by a pair of agents who accompanied Hill. Within five minutes of Martha’s arrival, they were airborne and traveling towards New York City.

“So what is it that’s so urgent I’m being transferred?” Martha asked Hill once the jet had leveled off. She’d only met the other woman once before, when Fury had recruited her from UNIT and Martha had gotten the impression Hill didn’t like her much. And, from some of the rumors she’d heard in the mess from several agents, Hill was a person you wanted to be in good graces with.

From the looks Hill was giving her, evaluative with a healthy dose of skepticism, Martha was doubtful any impression the other woman had of her would be changed in the near future.

“SHIELD recently discovered a downed aircraft, dating back to World War II, from a rogue Nazi science division known as Hydra,” Hill began, handing Martha a tablet. “In it, we discovered something. Or, _someone_ to be more exact.”

“Captain America is real?” Martha asked, looking up from the tablet. She’d already guessed as much from the conversation she’d had with Barton the night before, but she didn’t want to draw undue suspicion upon herself by reacting any other way. “How is he still alive?” she continued, looking back down at the tablet. “And so young?”

“All the relevant medical data should be in your hands,” Hill replied. “That includes Dr. Erksine’s original notes from when he developed the Super Soldier Serum and current observations from the doctors involved in Captain Rogers extraction from the ice.”

“If he’s been already extracted, why am I being rushed from my current project to this one?”

“You’ll have to talk to the Director about that.”

And _that_ must be at the center of Agent Hill’s distrust of her, Martha decided. She gave the impression of a woman who wanted to have all the facts so that she could come to a rational decision, and hated it when she knew things were being withheld from her. But there was little Martha could do to alleviate the situation without sharing more than she was comfortable having SHIELD know about the Doctor. She’d seen how he’d reacted to UNIT when he’d come to help with the Sontaran situation. She didn’t want to even imagine how he might react to SHIELD.

Instead, she listened carefully as Agent Hill sketched out the details regarding Captain Roger’s discovery in the ice, and how SHIELD theorized he had arrived there in the first place. Martha made a mental note to call Jack as soon as she could to see what he might know about Hydra, since he had lived through the war twice. It wasn’t that Martha didn’t trust SHIELD, but Jack would have a different perspective on the entire situation.

The ride to New York was surprisingly quick. Within three hours, they landed on a helipad across the river from Manhattan in New Jersey. Agent Coulson stood at the edge, not moving even as the debris picked up by the helicopter’s blades assaulted him. He waited until Martha and Hill emerged before gesturing them to follow him.

“We have a situation,” he began without preamble.

“What happened?” Martha asked, shouting to be heard even as they walked away.

“Captain Rogers woke up,” Coulson replied. “We had him in a room that simulated 1943 Brooklyn, but somebody forgot to make sure that the radio broadcast of the Dodgers game was historically accurate.”

“So he figured it out?” Hill questioned, climbing into a waiting SUV, followed closely by Martha and Coulson.

“Ran outside of the building and into Times Square before we could explain the situation to him,” he confirmed with a nod. “We brought him back to the base, but Dr. Jones is needed immediately to assist debriefing him.”

“Why exactly am I needed to debrief him?” Martha asked, looking at Coulson. She had her suspicions, but she needed somebody to verbalize the reasons for her presence here.

“The Director will explain when we arrive,” was Coulson’s only answer. Martha and Hill shared a look of mutual exasperation.

After parking in the garage beneath SHIELD’s New York offices, Coulson quickly escorted Martha through a series of hallways, ending in a small, out-of-the-way office. Martha wasn’t surprised to see Fury waiting and looking over a file when they entered. Coulson closed the door behind Martha, leaving her alone with the Director.

“So, you transfer me here to debrief Captain America,” Martha stated, forcing herself to remain in a relaxed stance. She was sure Fury saw through it, but she wanted to at least retain a pretense of not being nervous about this entire situation.

“Indeed I have, Dr. Jones,” Fury replied, not looking up from the paper. “I take it you’re wondering why.”

“That might be helpful, yes.”

“As I mentioned when we first met, your file from UNIT was heavily redacted. Including,” he paused for, in Martha’s opinion, dramatic effect, “who referred you to them in the first place. A doctor, just out of medical school, with no _visible_ experience in the field of xenobiology being snapped up by an organization designed to handle extraterrestrial threats is a little odd, if you ask me.

“I also believe,” he continued when Martha remained silent, “that the individual who may have recommended you to UNIT gave you some experience in situations outside of normal parameters. Including, for example, an ability to relate to Captain Rogers current predicament of waking up in a different world than the one he went to sleep in that our other employees may lack.”

Martha remained silent. Fury knew about the time travel, but didn’t have proof, she concluded. Whispers between organizations could work both ways, Martha knew, and if she had heard things about Fury and SHIELD, he’d probably heard things about the Doctor and his long involvement in UNIT and read between the lines, especially in the most recent encounter involving the ATMOS incident.

It also didn’t help that the man practically advertised his adventures in time traveling to every bloody person that he met when he introduced himself.

The way Martha saw it, she had three options right now. The first was to lie and deny what Fury was implying. As tempting as that was, Martha couldn’t do that. Her mum hadn’t raised a liar, and she wouldn’t go that far, not when there were other options. The second was to own up to what Fury had said, admit to traveling through time, but again, that wasn’t an option she was particularly keen to take unless absolutely necessary. That only left door number three.

“What would you have me do?” Martha asked in a deadly polite tone. Admitting to nothing had worked well for her in the past, and, while it may not be the most ideal choice, it was the only one she felt comfortable taking for now.

“Talk with Rogers. Be his guide,” Fury said. Although his face didn’t change expression, Martha couldn’t help but get the impression he was feeling smug. He’d probably wanted this outcome, damn the man. “I’m also assigning you to the unit analyzing the serum Dr. Erskine used, in hopes that we can finally unlock what he did, but that will only be part time.”

“And my other project?”

“I’m sure we can make arrangements for you to continue your research into the Tesseract’s effects on the scientists,” Fury replied calmly. “Is that all?”

Martha pursed her lips nodded slowly. She hated feeling like she was being manipulated into doing something, but there was little she could do at this point. “So when do I meet this Captain Rogers?”

“No time like the present,” Fury answered, and gestured for Martha to follow him out of the room and into the hallway.

Captain Steven Rogers, publicly known as Captain America, both was and wasn’t what Martha expected. He certainly fit the tall, blond, muscular image she had in her head, but he was quieter than most American soldiers Martha had met, and more contained. She wondered how much of that was due to shock and how much was inherent. She’d find out soon enough.

“Captain Rogers, this is Dr. Martha Jones,” Fury introduced her when they entered the examination room. Rogers looked up from studying his hands and gave Martha a shy, hesitant smile. “She’ll be helping you make the transition to the 21st century.”

“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” he answered softly, enveloping Martha’s hand in his own and shaking it. His grip was firm, not overwhelming, and she gave a genuine smile in return.

“Pleasure’s all mine, Captain Rogers,” Martha replied, meeting his gaze. “Now, if you’ll please excuse us, Director?” she asked, turning to Fury. She did her best to keep her voice pleasant and the smile from slipping, but she couldn’t tell if she’d succeeded or not.

Fury only nodded in response and quietly left, much to Martha’s surprise. She’d expected at least a token protest from him. But she’d take what she could get with him.

“So, Captain Rogers, how do feel about a walk?” she asked. She had no doubt that the room was being monitored by a plethora of agents, and she’d rather have few witnesses to what she and Rogers were going to discuss anything that might touch on her experiences with the Doctor. Some things were better in private. That, and she had just a small suspicion that he might enjoy the fresh air and walking outside, even though it was winter.

Somebody had already given the Captain clothes—khaki pants, white trainers, and a white t-shirt that clung to his muscled chest. He would probably need a coat due to the weather, although, compared to where he had spent the last sixty some-odd years, he might find it quite pleasant. They’d have to find one somewhere before they left.

“I’d like that,” he confessed.

Of course, it was immediately complicated by the fact that the faceless agent in charge attempted to force a protective detail on them. It was only after Martha repeated several times, in a tone she’d last used with John Smith and Nurse Redfern, that it would only attract more attention than a simple walk warranted. Furthermore, she emphasized, if they wanted the Captain to feel at ease, attempting to isolate him was a rather idiotic way to go about it.

Finally, after assuring the agent that they would only be going to Brooklyn were they allowed to leave.

“Next time, we’re sneaking out,” Martha muttered to the Captain as they walked down to the nearest subway station. She figured between her imperfect present day knowledge and his more likely better past knowledge of the city, they would be able to find their way around.

“You don’t plan on going to Brooklyn,” Rogers remarked, a smile flitting across his face.

“What, and make it easy for them to track us?” Martha asked in mock affront as they lost themselves in the crowd descending the stairs.

If there were agents following them, they managed to stay hidden while Martha and Rogers rambled through Central Park. They walked in silence, the hushed winter landscape enveloping them. If Rogers wanted to speak, she would let him. Otherwise, Martha wasn’t going to force the issue, not when they had just met. She wanted to get a better feel for the man before she started talking, and she suspected he felt similarly.

She wasn’t sure how long they stayed out there, but it was long enough for her feet to begin to ache. In unspoken agreement, they turned around so that they could walk back to SHIELD’s base, which wasn’t that far away.

An agent stood in the entryway, waiting for their return.

“The Director would like to speak with Captain Rogers, and Agent Coulson has some paperwork for you, Dr. Jones,” the woman, identified by her badge as Agent Morse, told them.

“Of course,” Rogers answered, shifting to a soldier’s stance from his more relaxed posture from their walk.

“Captain, before you go,” Martha began, fishing a card and a pen out of her purse. “This is my mobile number,” she continued, writing it down and handing it over. “If you ever need anything, feel free to call me.”

He took it with a murmur of thanks and followed Agent Morse, while Martha went to sort out the logistics of housing and keeping up with the New Mexico project with Coulson.

That night, unable to sleep despite the late hour and the time spent unpacking her belongings, Martha logged on to her email. She’d forgotten how bloody noisy the city could be after becoming accustomed to the relative quiet of the base. Looking at the first unread email, she frowned.

“How the hell did you get my address, Barton?” she muttered, clicking the message. He’d probably found it in her file, she reasoned, as she read the note: _Figured you’d be missing this. Hope Coulson’s fanboying hasn’t scared off the Captain yet. CB_

She smiled when she opened the photo: it was a view from her favorite spot, the one she had taken him to the night before. The quality wasn’t the best and it was hard to distinguish the individual stars, but it still touched her that he’d gone through the effort to get the photo. She hadn’t been expecting something like that.

Clicking reply, she quickly typed out a response. _It’s perfect. Thank you, Clint._


	4. Chapter 4

It was a week before Captain Rogers called her. They had taken another walk, but they didn’t talk then, either. That had been along Battery Park this time, the Statue of Liberty keeping silent watch over them. Martha’s mouth had quirked as she looked over the water, remembering her first visit to New York with the Doctor. She wondered what happened to Tallulah and Fred.

Sleep was eluding her once again, so she was reviewing some of the results from the latest batch of tests when Steve called.

“Dr. Jones? Is this a bad time?” he asked when Martha answered. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“Not at all, Captain Rogers. I was just catching up on some work,” she said, putting down her pen. “How can I help you?”

“Is there a place we could meet? Just to talk?”

“There’s a diner a few blocks from my flat,” Martha answered after a moment’s pause. Her new place was in the same neighborhood as her old flat, and she knew the area fairly well. “The food’s decent, and there’s hardly anybody there at this hour.”

She gave him directions and they agreed to meet in half an hour. Martha finished writing down her thoughts regarding some slight changes in blood chemistry she noticed in the latest tests. It wasn’t to the extent that her antibodies had been affected by traveling with the Doctor, but it was worth noting and looking into further.

Rogers was already sitting in a corner booth when she entered, his back to the wall.

“Thanks for coming, Dr. Jones,” he said, his menu folded in front of him. His hair was combed in the same style as he’d worn before, and while he was still wearing khakis, his shirt was a checkered button up that wouldn’t have looked out of place on older gentleman. Given he had just come from 1943, Martha didn’t really expect much different.

“It’s really no problem, Captain Rogers,” she reassured him, slipping into the seat across from him and smiling. “I figured something like this might happen when I gave you my mobile number with the instructions to call if you needed anything. And please, call me Martha.”

“Only if you call me Steve.”

“Deal.”

They paused their conversation to order—Steve enough food to feed a small football team and Martha just eggs and toast—and waited for the waitress to leave before continuing.

“So what was it you wanted to talk about?” Martha asked quietly. “As much as I appreciate the company, I doubt you called about a midnight breakfast.”

“Why did the Director assign you to me?” Steve’s question was direct, to the point. “I know you’re working on other projects and I’m working with other agents on assimilating into this new time, so why did he have you be my guide?”

Martha paused, wondering how much to answer. She wouldn’t be surprised to know that there were agents in the diner and she didn’t want too much to reach Fury’s ears. She needed to pick her next words with care.

“I’m not sure,” she began, her voice soft. “But I suspect it’s because I know what it’s like to wake up one morning only to find myself in a new time period, and having to make sense of everything and adjust.”

Steve looked up suddenly, her answer clearly not the one he expected.

“I don’t understand,” he said, confusion on his face. “How do you know this?”

“Let’s just say that before I came to work for SHIELD, I had a rather interesting travel experience,” Martha replied. “Eat first, and I’ll explain later.”

~*~*~

“So what’s he like?” Clint asked, putting a mug of cocoa in front of Martha. She’d flown back to New Mexico earlier that day, barely arriving before a rare blizzard engulfed the area. That effectively quashed her plans for the night. She’d been in the mess, staring out at the whirling snow beyond the windows when Clint found her.

“Very tall,” was Martha’s first answer. “Blonde. Great smile. Fantastic arse. Almost exactly what those old newsreels made him out to be.”

“Cute. Now what’s he really like?” Clint shot back, taking the seat across from her.

They had been emailing back and forth, ever since Martha’s first night back in New York City. The emails were mainly about work, either gossip from their respective bases or just some general observations. One email had Martha talking about the growing feud between two coworkers over shared labspace, while Clint wrote back about Coulson’s attempts to update the Captain America uniform without anybody being the wiser. The conversations were nothing serious, but Martha was starting to look forward to seeing new messages from Clint in her email.

“He’s...quiet,” Martha finally replied after blowing on her chocolate. “He’s quite smart, smarter than some of the idiots Fury had assigned to help integrate him were giving him credit for. He draws, all the bloody time if you leave him alone with paper and something to draw with.”

“Has he offered to draw you?”

“Like his French girls?” Martha added in a teasing voice, unable to resist.

“Hey, I wasn’t going to go there, but now that you have, has he?” Clint asked with a suggestive wag of the eyebrows.

“If he has, it’s between me and the Captain,” Martha answered smartly. Steve hadn’t, but she wasn’t going to tell Clint that. He had drawn her, but it had just been a few quick sketches that he’d refused to show her. She kept asking to see them, and she hoped that he’d one day let her.

“Tease,” Clint accused her, but the laugh in his voice. “So everything’s going well?”

“It’s been a bit of a readjustment,” she confessed. “There’s less of a community, it feels like, than there is here. Everybody has their own life away from work, you know?”

“Unlike where if you’re stationed here, you’re basically stuck so you make your own fun,” Clint replied with a shrug. “Somewhat related, your buddy Dr. Ngo is scary at dodgeball. She knocked out half of the opposing team by herself in the last game.”

Martha winced in sympathy. Hazel could be rather ruthless at times.

“Were you one of the unfortunate ones that Hazel took her misplaced aggression out on?”

“Are you trying to insult me? Of course not. I was the one who took her out of the game,” Clint said with a smug look on his face.

“It’s rude to brag,” Martha pointed out, suppressing the urge to laugh.

“Please. We all know I’m awesome.”

“In your dreams, Barton,” Martha shot back. She took another sip of cocoa, before placing the mug down in preparation for some serious business. “Now, what else have I missed? What was this I heard about Agent Garman and Wilson? Both you and Hazel were vague with the details. And what really happened when Coulson confiscated Darcy’s taser again? You didn’t go into specifics, and Darcy devolved into ranting when I tried to ask her about it.”

~*~*~

Steve didn’t want to talk about the war, Martha quickly discovered. That was fine. She understood that feeling.

It didn’t mean that it hadn’t affected him, however. That part of him was still trapped back in 1943, when he had fallen asleep. She could see it in the way he started at loud noises and how he scanned the street looking for potential threats and vantage points. She didn’t even want to think about how he might react to going to a modern grocery store, with its plethora of options for every conceivable item. If her reactions after the Year That Never Was were anything to go by, it would be overwhelming for him.

They were both soldiers, both survivors who had woken up one morning to find the war they had been fighting over and done with, and that nobody truly remembered it like they did. Fresh in their memories, the scars left behind new and raw and still healing.

“Why did you leave?” Steve asked one night after Martha had finished telling him about an adventure she and the Doctor had in the Old West, where they encountered the Clades. They were in her flat, the remains of Chinese takeout scattered over her kitchen table, in what was slowly becoming a ritual between the two of them.

Ever since that night in the diner, he would come over a few nights a week, and they’d talk. Or rather, she talked and Steve listened with the occasional question. She’d been slowly telling him bits and pieces of her travels, focusing mainly on her trips to the past, starting with being trapped in 1913 and telling her tale out of order. Steve accepted the inclusion of aliens easily, although he gave no explanation for it. Maybe he’d had an encounter while serving.

Martha rubbed at the covered scar on her left arm, searching for the right words to say. It was roughly two months since she’d met Steve, seven since she joined SHIELD, and nearly two years since the Master’s death. Nearly two calendar years since she met the Doctor, too, although more time had passed for her during their travels.

She had never really talked about her experiences eluding the Master and walking the Earth. With her family, those memories were still too painful to discuss. With Jack, while they were brief discussions, they both skirted around large portions, neither of them willing to re-open the wounds the Master had inflicted on their psyches. And really, who else could she talk to except for those people?

But maybe she could open up to Steve, somebody she was already sharing her stories with. Somebody who didn’t look at her like she was crazy when she talked about aliens and time travel and flirting with Shakespeare.

“Not tonight,” she said, making her decision. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll tell you that story. But not right now.”

“That’s fine,” Steve replied. After a pause, he continued, “You know, that story reminds me of this time that we were going to help liberate a French town, and Bucky found the strangest thing.”

There were no aliens or end of the world scenarios, and the connection was rather thin, but Martha listened avidly as Steve haltingly told his story. It was short, and it bordered on “you had to be there”, but she wasn’t going to complain.

It’s not much, but it’s a start.

~*~*~

“Do you ever look back on who you used to be and wonder what they would think of you?”

Martha’s question broke the stillness of the night surrounding her and Clint. It was her third visit back, shortly after her “breakthrough” with Steve. She was telling him bits and pieces of the Year, interspersed with happier memories. In return, Steve began to open up to her bit by bit about the war, although he still didn’t talk about what had happened to his former unit. Martha could look it up, she had no doubt, but she didn’t particularly feel like doing that at this time. She would wait for Steve to make the first move.

“Not really,” Clint answered from his spot on the blanket next to her. “Why?”

“Just something I was talking to Steve about before I came here,” Martha replied with a shrug. He had been talking about his life before he joined the Army as the little guy from Brooklyn, and it had gotten her thinking.

Her breath misted in the cold March air. Unlike her first visit, there was no blizzard to prevent her from going to see the stars, and Martha would brave the cold for this. Clint met her at the edge of the base with an extra blanket, and they walked out to her favorite spot together, talking quietly about details that hadn’t made it into their now almost daily emails to each other. Arriving, however, they sat in silence until Martha asked her question.

“So what’s the verdict on your retrospective walk in the park?”

“Only if you answer the question.”

“Deal.”

Martha took a deep breath before starting. “I do wonder what she’d think of me,” she confessed, thinking back on who she used to be before she met the Doctor. “I wanted to become a doctor so that I could help people, but there are times when I look at what I’m doing now and wonder if I’m doing that. If I’m actually helping people with what I’m doing for SHIELD.”

Though she didn’t say it, Martha also wondered how the old her would react to how she’d changed in personality since leaving the Doctor. Even though she was better about constantly putting others’ needs before hers and was far more confident in her abilities, she still found it hard to connect to people. Despite the lapse of time, the habit of holding herself slightly apart from those she met briefly clung to her, a legacy of doing her best not to open herself to more pain if they were targeted by the Master’s forces.

She had stood too close to the Doctor’s flame and had been burned. There were days when she wondered if his fire was less of a renewing flame than a destructive one. Martha Jones had grown up, but at what cost?

“Do you regret the choices that you made?” Clint asked, shifting so that he could look at her.

That, at least, was an easy question. “No,” she replied. Despite everything, she couldn’t bring herself to regret the path that she’d walked. “Now, fair is fair,” she continued, before she fell into the trap that too much introspection offered. “Your turn.” She rolled over onto her side so that she could face Clint.

“I think kid me would be suitably impressed with the badass I turned out to be,” he answered with a smirk. “And that the hours training with the bow finally paid off in a way that doesn’t require me to wear a ridiculous spangly outfit.”

“I don’t know, that outfit had a certain amount of charm,” Martha teased. Clint had let slip in an email that he used to be a carnie when she mentioned taking Steve to a circus, and a quick Google search had uncovered a photo Clint swore was fake.

“You try wearing the damn thing,” Clint grumbled good-naturedly. “Then we’ll talk about much charm it had.”

They lapsed into silence again, and Martha found herself drifting towards sleep when Clint’s voice startled her.

“I think if past you ever met current you, she’d be impressed,” he said quietly.

Martha stifled a laugh that threatened to bubble over. _That’s more possible than you probably know,_ she thought. Time was wibbly-wobbly, after all, and anything could happen.

“Thank you,” she said instead with a smile.

~*~*~

It wasn’t too often that Martha was called upon to use her actual training as a medical doctor now that SHIELD employed her. It was a rare enough occurrence that it stood out to Martha as something worth looking into, if she ever felt confident she could bypass the encryption surrounding the details. Or felt willing to wade into the inevitable office gossip and sort fact from fiction. Whichever was less time consuming.

“I don’t want to know, do I?” Martha asked dryly as she slowly stitched up a wound on Agent Hill’s arm. The other woman had insisted that Martha treat the other members of the team first before tending to her. That had been over an hour ago, after radiation scrubs for whatever mysterious mission had been important enough for Fury’s right-hand woman to lead. Fortunately, there had been no serious injuries for Martha to deal with as the on-call doctor for the day, just some burns to treat and some wounds to disinfect and stitch together. Overall, nothing was as bad as it could be, which Martha counted as a blessing, considering the threats SHIELD was designed to fight.

“I don’t think you’re classified to know, even if you wanted to, Dr. Jones,” Hill answered, a slight twist to her mouth.

“That’s what I was afraid you were going to say,” Martha replied mournfully, tying the thread and snipping it off. “Whatever this mission was, though, I hope it was worth it.”

“Oh, it was,” Hill said cheerfully, carefully sliding off of the examination table and draping her ruined jacket over her arm. “Although I would stay clear of North Jersey for a while.”

“If I had any reason to cross the river, I would take that into consideration.”

Martha turned back to tidying the base infirmary when she heard Hill clear her throat. She turned around slowly to she Hill standing in the doorway, an uncertain look on her face. It passed so quickly, however, that Martha was almost sure she had imagined it.

“Dr. Jones, thank you for looking after my team,” she said, her voice betraying nothing. Before Martha could respond that she was just doing her job, Hill turned on her heel and walked out the door, leaving a stunned Martha staring after her.

She was puzzling over the uncharacteristic exchange over lunch when Agent Bobbi Morse sat across from her.

“Anything in particular that’s calling your attention to that spot in the ceiling?” she asked with raised eyebrows. Bobbi was one of the agents that Martha had befriended, albeit more slowly than she had in New Mexico. She occasionally helped out the team analyzing the Super Soldier serum, comparing Steve’s blood work with the samples recovered from both the Hulk and Abomination in Harlem, and she had invited Martha out for drinks with some of the other female agents. With a Ph.D. in biology earned at some ridiculously young age, she liked to help when there were no pressing missions for her.

“Just Agent Hill not acting like herself. She actually thanked me for doing my job,” Martha confided, stabbing her salad with a little more force than necessary. “It’s making me uncomfortable.”

“Oh, is that it?” Bobbi replied. “That’s just Maria letting you know that she trusts you.”

“Couldn’t she just say it like a normal human being?”

“No, because Fury’s trained it out of her,” Bobbi explained with a shrug. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s different from the old man, but she’s picked up some of his need to be cryptic.”

“That’s good to know. Now that I’ve earned her trust, I can reveal that I’m secretly from the mirror universe and can start my evil plot to take over SHIELD from within!”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Bobbi said with a shudder. “You weren’t there for that briefing, but trust me, it’s no laughing matter.”

“Duly noted. Of course, now that you’ve said that, you’re going to have to explain. You can’t say something like that and expect me to let it go.”

~*~*~

Clint wasn’t at the base the next time Martha came to collect samples from the scientists. To be fair, he hadn’t replied to her last email in roughly a week, but it was still disappointing to arrive and find that he wasn’t there. Ignoring the start of a dull ache in her chest, Martha went about her work.

That night, not in the mood to head into the desert, she sat in the mess writing attempting to write an email to Tish. She said attempting because half the time, she found herself staring out the windows instead of writing.

“He should be back by next week.”

“Oh, God!” Martha exclaimed, startled by the sudden voice. Turning around, she saw Coulson standing behind her, still wearing a suit despite the late hour and carrying a folder under one arm.

“Who?” Martha asked when she managed to control her breathing, although she could guess who Coulson was talking about.

“Agent Barton,” Coulson confirmed, an annoying knowing look on his face. “I assume that’s who you’re waiting for.”

“Where has he vanished to, if you don’t mind me asking?” Martha tried deflecting, although she wasn’t sure how effective it was going to be. He had always been good at staying on target, much to his detriment in the alternate timeline.

“Classified,” Coulson answered with an enigmatic smile.

“I thought he was assigned here to ensure that the project remained secure,” Martha countered.

“He still is, it’s just that this particular mission required his specific skill set,” Coulson said, pulling out a piece of paper from the folder he was carrying and handed it to Martha. “I would like your opinion on this,” he continued, his posture subtly shifting and looking as uncertain as somebody like him could.

Martha took it warily, half afraid that it might be SHIELD’s version of a Howler. When she actually looked at it, she couldn’t decide if it was worse or not.

“The Director was asking for input and I figured since you spent the most time with him, you could help,” Coulson explained as Martha starred in dawning horror at the drawing in front of her.

It was a sketch of a uniform, much like a fashion designer might make in the early phases of a project, only it wasn’t a piece of couture. Instead, it was a modernized version of Steve’s Captain America uniform. One which, it appeared to Martha, drew very, very heavily from his days selling bonds. She squinted, trying to bring one of the details into focus. Was that supposed to be _chainmail_?

“It’s very…American,” Martha observed.

“Is that a bad thing?” Coulson asked, moving to stand beside her so that he could see the outfit.

“It’s just very loud and attention grabbing,” Martha elaborated, handing the paper back to him. “Why is Fury having you re-design his outfit, anyway? Last I heard, Captain Rogers wasn’t part of SHIELD.”

“That’s classified, Dr. Jones.” With that, the switch flipped back from fanboy to agent, and Coulson calmly tucked the paper back into his folder. “Let’s just say the Director is planning ahead.”

“With chainmail?”

“So you think that’s a bit much?” Coulson asked, and the fanboy was back. Martha nodded, and he sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

With that, he left, leaving Martha staring after him, her mind alternating between wondering what Fury might be planning for and whether or not Coulson had been serious about the chainmail.

Shaking her head, she turned back to her email to Tish.

_I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but the people I work with can be very odd at times. More so than I’ve seen in a while._

~*~*~

_Keep your evening free next time you come in,_ the last email from Clint had said. Martha read it again, trying to interpret it.

In the five months since she’d been reassigned to New York and commuting back to New Mexico to gather samples, it’d been habit that they would spend evenings out in the desert, unless weather or unexplained absences interfered. Didn’t that count as keeping an evening free? _Unless..._

Martha paused, considering the thought that had just popped into her head.

Unless he was asking her on a date, or something as sort of a prelude to a date.

“You’re reading too much into this, Martha,” she muttered to herself, still staring at the email. Or was she?

Martha hadn’t dated since she ended her engagement with Tom right before she moved to New York for the first time. Part of that was being too busy, but another part was trying to unintentionally avoid similar emotional fallout. She had liked him, cared for him, but it was only after it had ended under the weight of too many secrets she had kept that she realized what it had been. It had been her trying to return to what had been normal before traveling with the Doctor while continuing on with her new life. Only that couldn’t happen. You couldn’t relive the past, no matter how hard you wanted to. Martha learned that the hard way, and had needlessly hurt Tom in the process.

She considered Clint to be a good friend. Yes, there was an element of flirting, but they were friends. She liked that she could relax and laugh in his company. She liked that even though she hadn’t told him the full story of her past, he accepted her, contradictions and all, and she had the feeling that he would at least try to understand if she told him. She liked that she felt comfortable enough to fall asleep in his presence, something she accorded to few people she knew now.

But that raised the question: did she want their relationship to go farther than it had already gone if the opportunity presented itself? Or was she too afraid of the combined ghosts of the Doctor and Tom to take that risk?

“You’re reading too much into this,” she repeated as she typed out her response. Before she could have second thoughts, she clicked “send” and let out a breath she’d unconsciously been holding in.

Too bad she didn’t believe herself when she said it.


	5. Chapter 5

The pounding at her door jolted Martha awake. Blinking, she glanced at the clock next to her bed and groaned when she saw that it was an hour before her alarm was supposed to ring on her rare day off. It was one week before she was supposed to head back to New Mexico and whatever surprise Clint had planned, and she really just wanted to sleep and not do anything. The pounding increased when nobody answered, becoming frantic. Groaning, Martha rolled out of bed. Whoever was on the other side better have a bloody good reason for waking her up.

Prowling through her flat, she yanked the door open to find Bobbi on the other side, drawn gun in hand. Another agent Martha wasn’t familiar with stood next to her, his sidearm unholstered

“Sir, she’s secure,” Bobbi said into the communication device in her ear.

“Who are you talking? Why do I need to be secured?” Martha demanded, looking between Bobbi and the other man. The grim faced agents exchanged a look before Bobbi removed her earpiece and handed it to Martha.

“Hello? What’s going on?” she asked as soon as she secured the device.

“There’s been a situation in New Mexico in regards to the Tesseract,” the Director’s voice said. It was different than Martha was used to, an almost imperceptible note of strain woven into it.

“What type of situation?” Martha asked, a knot starting to form in her stomach. She felt stupid asking, really. There could only be one reason agents would be here under direct orders from the Director, but she needed to hear him say it.

“The base was attacked less than an hour ago and the Tesseract stolen,” he explained. In the background, Martha could hear muted voices shouting at each other and the roar of a jet. “I’ll be in New York within two hours to brief you and Captain Rogers,” he continued as Martha watched the two agents secure her flat, room by room. “Until that time, gather what you’ll need for a few days and go with Agents Morse and Khalil back to the New York base.”

He hung up before Martha could ask any questions, leaving her feeling cold. The base attacked. The Tesseract stolen. From the way Fury had sounded and the orders he had given, the fact that she needed to be secured in the first place led her to one conclusion. Something that she didn’t even want to consider.

“What happened to the team that I was working with there?” Her voice sounded strange to her ears. Distant.

“Martha,” Bobbi began before Martha interrupted her.

“What. Happened. To. Them.” Martha repeated, more forcefully this time. Bobbi and Khalil exchanged a glance before Bobbi replied.

“We don’t know how many casualties there are,” she answered quietly. “They were already in the process of evacuating the base when it collapsed. We don’t have any more details than that right now.”

Martha nodded curtly. Bobbi and Agent Khalil might know more, but she wasn’t going to waste any more precious time trying to get information from them.

“Give me ten minutes,” she told them, walking to her room. “And then I’ll be ready to go.”

Martha always kept a bag prepped in case she needed to leave quickly, a leftover from her days on the run. It took a few short minutes to get dressed in clothes sturdy enough to last, and tuck in a few odds and ends that weren’t already packed. Within the time she’d given the agents, they were leaving her flat via a service stairwell and into a waiting black SUV.

The tension in the back of Martha’s neck increased when they arrived at the building that served as their base. The guards, normally invisible and discreet, were in full force. After being subjected to a thorough security check, including retina and fingerprint scans, Bobbi and Khalil lead Martha to her lab space and handed her off to a pair of agents already stationed inside. Bobbi gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before taking a guard position outside.

Depositing her bag on the floor, Martha got to work. She began reviewing all the information she had gathered about the Tesseract since starting to work for SHIELD. Some of it came from her official briefings, while other parts of it were observations from other scientists working with the artifact.

She would occasionally skim her notes while working with the samples, but now she began reading everything as closely as she could. Parts of it didn’t make any sense, like the calculations Selvig had briefly described, but other parts she understood perfectly.

While the Tesseract was an energy source of immense power—as seen by Hydra’s use of it during World War II—Selvig had theorized that it could open portals between worlds. Either explanation for the device’s use might explain why somebody or some organization might target the base. But despite almost a year working with the artifact and the benefit of the latest technologies, Selvig and his team had yet to crack all of its secrets.

She poured over her notes for hours, trying to distract herself from thinking about her co-workers, her friends. Was Hazel still alive? Wilson? Were Darcy and Jane visiting the base while it was attacked? Where was Clint? Had she scheduled her visit a week earlier, would she be among the casualties?

The sound of approaching footsteps brought her back to the present and she looked up to see Fury and Steve entering her lab. Steve sat down on a stool next to her, while Fury remained standing, two folders in his hands.

“What happened?” Martha asked immediately.

“At 2:30 in the morning local time, while running some tests with the Tesseract, Dr. Selvig and his team picked up unusual spikes in energy from the cube,” Fury began, handing them each a folder. Steve flipped his open immediately, but Martha kept hers closed. She needed to hear this.

“This is Hydra’s secret weapon,” Steve interrupted before Fury could continue, a quiet note of accusation in his voice.

“Howard Stark retrieved it while searching for you,” Fury explained, no sign of irritation at this brief tangent. “It’s only recently, however, that we’ve had the technology available to research its full capabilities.”

Steve nodded, clearly unhappy over something. But he remained silent, allowing Fury to continue.

“At 0300, shortly after the scientists tried, and failed, to shut off the device, the base was ordered to evacuate. At 0500, Agent Hill and I arrived to oversee the situation.” He paused, and Martha didn’t think it was for dramatic effect. “It was at this time the Tesseract opened a portal and let through an alien who identified himself as Loki of Asgard. Using some sort of scepter, he managed to place Dr. Selvig, Agent Peterson, and Agent Barton under his control, stole the Tesseract, and escape. The portal, being unstable, collapsed on itself and destroyed the base.”

“Is there a casualty list?” Martha asked, ignoring the numb feeling spreading through her. Now was not the time to panic. She needed to stay calm, to stay focused on what she _could_ do, and not think of yet another person she cared for under control of a mad alien.

“It’s included in your folder, Dr. Jones,” Fury answered with a nod.

“What do you want us to do?” Steve asked, reaching over and giving Martha’s hand a squeeze. His hand, warm and calloused, anchored her. He knew what it was like to have somebody you cared for under control of the enemy.

“Captain Rogers, we need you to help to recover the cube. In the wrong hands...Well, I guess you’ve already seen that. If you accept this mission, you’ll fly out first thing tomorrow morning to our forward command,” Fury replied. “As for you, Dr. Jones, I believe this situation is something that you’re familiar with.” Martha nodded slowly, but remained silent. “In addition to that, you’ve been studying how the Tesseract interacts with humans. If possible, we’d like you to find a way to counter what Loki’s done to Selvig, Peterson, and Barton.”

“Of course,” Martha said, proud of the fact that her voice remained calm and steady. “Does this forward base have sufficient lab space?”

“Excuse me?” Under any other circumstances, Fury and Steve speaking in unison would have been amusing.

“I’m coming with you,” Martha answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You didn’t think I would stay here, did you?”

“I’ll make sure the lab is configured to your specifications,” Fury said after a heavy pause. “I’ll have the security footage from the base forwarded to you for observation. I’ll see you both in the morning.”

“Do you need any help?” Steve asked when Fury left. He looked worried, both about the situation and Martha’s putting herself in the middle of it. She appreciated that he respected her enough not try to talk her out of going with him, even if he wasn’t sure how it would turn out.

“Just stay, please,” she said quietly, looking at the folder in her hand like it was a bomb. Taking a deep breath, she flipped it open and pulled out the casualty list. There were several names she vaguely recognized from her time there. In the middle of sheet, she found what she had been scared to find:

_Dr. Wilson Stafford - deceased  
Dr. Hazel Ngo - deceased_

Martha closed her eyes and swallowed, willing herself not to cry, to ignore the dull ache in her chest at the thought of her friends dead. Clint and Selvig were still under Loki’s control, and that was something she could change. She would have time to mourn Hazel and Wilson later.

“Hand me that pile of papers sitting on the keyboard beside you,” she told Steve, slipping the casualty list behind the other items in the folder. “I need to make sure that I don’t forget anything.”

~*~*~

It was only Steve insisting that she needed to sleep in order to help Clint and Selvig that made Martha go to bed. There was a small cot in the lab, where she crashed for several hours, aided by melatonin provided by Bobbi. Even then, she was still awake and prepared by the time Coulson arrived to escort her and Steve to wherever forward command was located.

SHIELD had been busy in the day between Loki’s attack and now. According to a rough briefing given to them by Coulson, they were in contact with a specialist in gamma radiation, who might help them track down Loki and the Tesseract, one Dr. Bruce Banner.

Or, as Martha and most everyone else remembered him from the Harlem incident, the Hulk.

“When he’s not that thing, though, he’s some kind of Stephen Hawking,” Coulson explained as Steve and Martha watched footage from the Hulk’s rampage through a college campus the previous year on a Stark Industries tablet.

“Who?” Steve asked, looking over at Martha.

“He’s a famous physicist, incredibly smart,” she answered, rubbing her eyes. Maybe Banner could give her some insight into how that scepter of Loki’s worked, if it was similar enough to the Tesseract. She’d take any breakthrough she could get right now.

“I gotta say, it’s a real honor to meet you,” Coulson said after a brief pause, fanboy mode apparently winning out. “Officially. I sort of met you while you were sleeping.”

Martha side-eyed him as Steve gave the agent a polite smile before getting to his feet and walking towards the cockpit of their jet.

“I mean, I was present while you were unconscious from the ice,” Coulson continued, apparently oblivious to how much of a stalker he sounded like.

“Are you trying to dig yourself deeper into that hole of yours, Coulson?” Martha asked, unable to help herself. If it wasn’t for the gravity of the situation around them, she might find this entire situation hilarious.

“Anyways, it’s an honor to have you on board, sir,” the agent finished, as if he hadn’t heard Martha’s comment.

“I’m just glad I can be of service,” Steve said diplomatically.

It was another half hour before they reached the forward command, an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Atlantic. Martha used that time to review what little new information SHIELD had compiled—mainly a list of people who they’d been watching that had disappeared within the last twenty-four hours. Given their histories, Loki could either be constructing a weapon or another portal according to the analysts working on the case. There was no mention of Clint in the new reports.

Before they left the jet once they landed, Coulson pulled Martha aside. “I’m sorry about Dr. Ngo,” he apologized, genuine empathy on his face. “I know you two were close.”

“Thank you. It...it hasn’t fully sunk in yet,” Martha answered quietly, her voice catching.

“If you need anything, let me know.” Coulson left the jet, with Steve close behind him. Martha paused for a moment to collect herself and hold back the tears that threatened to fall. She took one shuddering breath and then another before she felt comfortable stepping outside.

“And this is Dr. Jones,” she heard Coulson introduce her as she stepped out of the jet and onto the deck. She looked over and saw him talking to a redheaded woman, who appeared to be around her age. Walking over to join Coulson, Steve, and the mystery woman. “Dr. Jones, Agent Romanov.” Although Martha was sure that they had never officially met, there was something about Romanov that seemed familiar to her, though she couldn’t place it.

Romanov looked at her for a moment, studying her closely before nodding. “Hey.” She then turned to Coulson. “They want you on the bridge. They’re starting the phase trace.”

Coulson nodded and headed inside. Looking around the deck while Romanov talked with Steve, Martha spied a man who looked conspicuously out of place, wandering between planes and mechanics like he was afraid to touch something.

“Dr. Banner, I presume,” Martha said when he drew close enough to be within hearing range.

He paused to look at her, hands rubbing together nervously. “You have the advantage on me,” he said wryly.

“Dr. Martha Jones,” she introduced herself, extending her hand.

“Pleasure. And this must be Captain Rogers,” he continued, looking behind her. “They told me you were coming in on this.”

Without turning around, Martha could hear Steve’s strained smile as she greeted the scientist. “Dr. Banner. They tell me you can find the cube.”

“Is that the only thing you’ve heard?” he asked, looking between Martha, Steve, and Romanov.

“It’s the only thing that matters,” Steve answered after glancing at Martha, who gave Banner a reassuring smile.

Falling back while the men walked ahead, she found herself standing next to Agent Romanov.

“So you’re the famous Dr. Jones that they lured away from UNIT,” Romanov observed quietly. “It was quite a coup, or so I heard.”

“I didn’t realize I was the subject of interagency one-upmanship.”

“SHIELD only brings in the best. And if the best happens to work for somebody else, we recruit them away.” Romanov studied Martha closely, taking in every little detail in a thorough scan before speaking again. “The Director thinks that you might be able to undo whatever it is Loki’s done to Clint and the rest of them.”

“I can try,” Martha replied, meeting the other woman’s eyes. She didn’t miss that the only person that Romanov had singled out was Clint, which made her wonder if this was the mysterious partner he’d mentioned in passing a few times. Martha had hoped to meet her one day, just to see the person that figured in the (severely edited) stories that Clint chose to share, but she wished it could be under different circumstances.

Romanov paused before moving towards Steve and Banner. “Gentlemen, you might want to come inside, it’s about to get hard to breathe.”

Martha’s eyes widened, putting the pieces together as the sound of huge motors began to drown out all other noise. Slowly, the ship they were on began to rise out of the water and took flight. Without saying anything, Martha followed Romanov off of the hanger deck and into the belly of the beast.

“You stole this from UNIT,” Martha accused Fury as soon as they stepped inside the bridge.

The Director, standing on a platform overlooking the bridge, didn’t so much as glance back at her. “It was a joint project. As you can see, we’ve made considerable improvements on the _Valiant’s_ design. She’s called the Helicarrier.”

“Right,” Martha muttered, watching Steve calmly hand Fury a bill while continuing to stare in wonder at the sight before him. Spying Coulson standing by some agents, she moved towards them while Fury talked to Banner.

“Anything so far?” she asked, noticing out of the corner of her eye that Romanov tailed her.

“It’s a work in progress,” he answered with a shake of his head. “We’re sweeping every wirelessly accessible device on the planet. Cellphones, laptops; if it’s connected to a satellite, it’s eyes and ears for us.”

“That’s too slow,” Romanov argued, crouching down next to a computer screen. “Loki could blow up the planet before we find him that way.”

“She’s right,” Banner cut in from behind Martha. “You need to narrow your search. How many spectrometers do you have access to?”

“How many do you need?”

Martha listened absently to Banner describing the steps that the laboratories needed to do so that SHIELD could narrow down the search area. Instead, she did her best to control her breathing and not panic. The Helicarrier was different enough from the _Valiant_ , but similar enough to threaten the return of unwanted memories. The last time she had been aboard a vessel like this, it had been to defeat a crazed alien bent on world domination; the parallels to her current situation were enough to make her slip back two years ago.

“...which you’ll be sharing with Dr. Jones. Agent Romanov will lead you there.”

The sound of her name snapped her out her daze and she looked over at Fury and Banner. If it was possible, Banner looked even more nervous than before.

“Come on, docs,” Romanov called out, starting down the hallway, clearly expecting them to follow. “We’ve got all the toys.” Martha started after her at once, not willing to waste another moment.

They were already in the hallway before Banner caught up with them.

“Dr. Jones, working in the same space as me might not be the best idea,” he told her quietly. “If the Other Guy comes out, I can’t guarantee you’ll come out of the encounter alive. He tends to make a mess of things.”

“Dr. Banner, I’ve survived many things. I think I can run and hide with the best of them,” Martha replied, not bothering to stop.

“Do you even have the sense to be scared?” Banner demanded, grabbing her arm and forcing her to face him.

“Of course I’m scared,” Martha answered quietly, doing her best not to glare at him. “Frankly, I’m terrified, not just of you, but of Loki and what he plans on doing with the Tesseract. But there are too many people depending on me to give in to that.” She jerked her arm out of his grip and continued to follow Agent Romanov, Banner trailing behind.

He didn’t speak to her until about an hour later, after Romanov had left and they were both immersed in their respective tasks.

“So what exactly did Fury bring you in for?” he asked, not looking up from the piece of paper he was using to work out his tracking algorithm.

“I was assigned to the initial project to track any changes the Tesseract might have on the human body,” Martha said, rubbing her eyes. Even after sleeping last night, she still felt exhausted. “Fury wants me to see if I can puzzle out how Loki’s controlling Selvig, Barton, and Peterson, and if there’s a way to break it.”

“That’s not ambitious at all.”

Martha’s mouth quirked slightly at the sarcasm in Banner’s voice. “No more so than trying to find the Tesseract,” she countered.

“Touché.”

Martha’s smile faded as she looked over at the screen she was working at. The frozen image of Loki holding his scepter over Clint’s heart, his face twisted in pain at whatever it was Loki was doing sobered her. She had theories regarding the changes she’s observed in the blood of those working closest with the Tesseract, and how it might make them susceptible to a similar energy, but they were just hypotheses at this point, nothing concrete that she could use to break the spell.

 _Get yourself together, Martha_ , she scolded herself. She was better than this. She’d walked the Earth while the man she’d loved and her family were in their enemy’s clutches, and she’d won. She should be able to handle another crazed alien who had killed and captured her friends.

She and Banner worked throughout the afternoon, each racing time. Dusk was falling before she realized the strange noise she was hearing was her stomach. She’d been so focused that she’d forgotten to eat since breakfast.

“Be right back,” Martha called out to Banner. “Do you want anything?”

“If they have any fruit, I’d like that. And some mint tea,” he added as an afterthought.

Martha nodded, and slipped into the hallway, looking for the galley. She was halfway there, thanks to the helpful directions from a junior agent, when she ran into Romanov, who was had changed outfits. Now, she was wearing a sleek black catsuit, and was adjusting a wrist-mounted weapon Martha didn’t recognize.

“We spotted Loki in Germany,” the agent told her, not looking up. “The Captain and I are going to go check it out and bring him in if we can. Hopefully, Clint will be close by.”

Martha nodded silently, her voice unexpectedly tight.

“Good luck.”

“Same to you, Dr. Jones,” Romanov replied, looking up to meet Martha’s eyes. “Hopefully Rogers likes the suit we’ve designed for him. Although I think I have you to blame for talking Coulson out of the chainmail. I thought it was a nice touch.”

Romanov continued towards the shuttle bay. Martha watched her go, before returning to her original mission with new urgency. If they did manage to bring in Clint and Loki, she would need to be ready.


	6. Chapter 6

Stretching her neck, trying to work out a crick, Martha caught sight of a mass of black moving through the hallway. She and Bruce paused to watch as heavily armed SHIELD agents escorted a tall, thin man that Martha recognized from the surveillance videos as Loki, most likely towards the cells. As he passed by the lab, he turned to look at them, his lips curling upwards in a cruel smile.

“We should probably go to the bridge,” Martha told Banner, putting down her pen and watching as Loki’s figure disappeared down the hall. “Fury’s probably sending somebody to get us anyways.”

“You sure about that?” Banner asked, but he put down his tools and followed her out into the hallway. Steve and Romanov were already sitting at the conference table located towards the back of the bridge, along with a tall, muscular blond man in strange armor.

Steve looked a little worse for wear, with a bruise blooming on his cheek. When Martha raised her eyebrow, he shook his head, not wanting to talk about whatever had happened.

They watched silently as the guards led Loki into a glass cage.

“I really, really hope that doesn’t come to bite us in the arse,” Martha muttered, watching Fury demonstrate how the security features on the cage worked in an attempt to intimidate Loki. She had enough experience to know that whenever something like this happened, the tables would inevitably be turned and the information used against them. “It’s not like he could put that information to nefarious uses or anything,” she continued, ignoring Hill’s glare and the slight twitch of Romanov’s mouth.

“So I’ve heard,” Loki’s commented on Fury’s statement that the cage was built for something stronger than him. “A mindless beast who still plays that he’s man. How desperate are you to call upon such lost souls to defend you?”

Martha resisted the urge to glance at Banner, instead remaining focused on the feed. No need to make him feel any more self-conscious than he probably already was.

They listened in silence to the rest of the exchange, Loki taunting Fury at every turn. Finally, Fury cut him off, walking away with the line, “Let me know if real power would like a magazine.” Martha’s snorted quietly.

“He really grows on you, doesn’t he?” Banner commented after the feed switched off, sounding like he was trying not to laugh.

“Yes, if you happen to like genocidal aliens with delusions of grandeur,” Martha shot back, rubbing her forehead. She’d already had her lifetime share of that, thank you very much. No need to repeat it with a slightly different monster in a slightly different location.

“He’s going to drag this out,” Steve said, ignoring Martha and Banner’s exchange and turning to the new arrival. “So, Thor, what’s his play?”

Martha looked sharply over at the man who was still standing. This was Jane and Darcy’s mysterious god, the one who had been responsible for the events that led to them working for SHIELD? From the way Darcy had described him, she’d expected him to be louder, more unrestrained, but he was just standing there quietly, as if lost in thought.

“He has an army called the Chitauri,” Thor answered in a deep voice. “They’re not of Asgard, or of any world known. He means to lead them into war against your people. They will win him the earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract.”

“An alien army?” Steve asked, before turning towards Martha. “Have you heard of the Chitauri before?”

Martha shook her head. “Never, although the universe is a pretty large place,” she answered, tapping her finger against the table. “So you know nothing about them?” she asked Thor, doing her best to control her breathing and remain focused on the problem at hand.

Great, just bloody fantastic. Not only was Loki too similar to the Master for her peace of mind, with somebody she cared about under his control, there was now an unknown, alien army being added to the mix, just like there had been with the Toclafane.

God, she wanted this to be all a nightmare.

“We’ve never heard of them before news reached us of Loki’s plans,” Thor confirmed.

“So he’s building another portal,” Banner cut in, stepping towards the table. “That’s what he needs Erik Selvig for.”

“Selvig?” Thor asked, a worried look on his face, and Martha felt a knot form in her stomach. Of course Thor knew Selvig, if he had met Jane and Darcy last year.

“Yes, that Dr. Selvig,” she answered, meeting his eyes. “Loki put him under some sort of control when he stole the Tesseract from SHIELD.”

“Along with one of ours,” Romanov added, a dark look on her face. Martha pitied Loki if he was ever left in a room alone with her. She had a feeling only one of them would be walking out, and it wouldn’t be the god.

“I wonder why Loki let us take him. He’s not going to be leading an army from here.”

“Maybe so he can know our defenses, how SHIELD might react to something,” Martha suggested with a shrug.

“I don’t think we should be focusing on the army,” Banner interjected, his glasses in his hands. “That guy’s brain is like a bag full of cats. You can smell crazy on him.”

“Have care how you speak,” Thor warned, leaning over the table. “He may beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he’s my brother.”

Dear lord, _please_ let this be a nightmare.

“He killed eighty people in two days,” Romanov reminded him, the look on her face still one that made Martha glad she was on their side.

“He is adopted.”

“I think we need to go back to why he was in Germany in the first place,” Banner continued, ignoring the exchange between Thor and Romanov. “What does he need the iridium for?

“It’s a stabilizing agent,” a new voice cut in, one she was sure she’d heard before. Martha looked over to see Coulson walking through the doors alongside... Jesus, that was Tony Stark. Fury must be desperate to bring in Stark. She’d heard about the tense relations between him and SHIELD, and his presence alone spoke volumes.

“Means,” he continued after finishing the conversation he was having with Coulson, “that the portal won’t collapse on itself like it did at SHIELD. No hard feelings, Point Break, you’ve got a mean swing,” he told Thor, patting the other man on the arm. “It also means that the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants.”

“So he’s improving on the original design,” Banner commented to nobody in particular while Stark annoyed the bridge crew by pretending to be the captain on a sailing ship. “How did Loki even get that information?”

“How does Fury even see these?” Stark asked, pointing at the control panels at Fury’s station, covering up one eye as he did so.

“He turns,” Hill answered, clearly unimpressed by Stark’s antics. In fact, Hill seemed more unimpressed than she normally did, which meant she was unhappy about something. Very unhappy about something, if Martha’s previous interactions with the woman were any indication.

“Sounds exhausting,” Stark replied, turning his attention back to the screens. “The rest of the raw materials Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he still needs is a power source of high energy density, something to kickstart the cube.”

“When did you become an expert on thermonuclear astrophysics?” Oh, yes, Hill was unhappy about this situation.

“Last night. The packet, Selvig’s notes, the extraction theory papers? Am I the only one who did the homework?”

“Any idea where he could get a power source like this?” Steve asked, looking between Stark and Martha. “Does he need any particular kind for this to work?”

“He’d have to heat the cube to a hundred-twenty million Kelvin just to break the coolum barrier,” Banner answered, starting to pace and play with his glasses again.

“Unless Selvig’s figured out a way to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect,” Stark cut in.

“Then he could achieve heavy ion fusion at any reactor in the planet,” Banner finished, sounding excited.

“Finally, somebody who speaks English!”

“Is that what happened?” Steve whispered to Martha.

“Trust me, this is tame compared to what might happen if they met some friends of mine,” Martha replied, still wary about mentioning the Doctor by name. Her hand slipped into her pocket and she fingered her mobile, wondering if she should call him. Tell him that there was a situation here that could use his help. Even just ask if he knew anything about the Chitauri or Loki or anything that could give them an edge.

“Dr. Banner is only here to help track the cube,” Fury said as he entered the bridge, cutting through whatever it was Banner and Stark were discussing. “I was hoping you could help him, Mr. Stark. Dr. Jones,” he added, turning to Martha, “we do have Loki’s scepter in our possession now, which should help you find out how he turned two of the sharpest men I know into his own personal flying monkeys.”

“Monkeys?” Thor asked, looking confused. “I do not understand—”

“I do!“ Steve exclaimed, pointing at Thor. At Martha’s raised eyebrow, he gave her a sheepish look. “I understood that reference.”

“We’re getting you out more, Steve,” Martha muttered, getting to her feet. “That should make things easier, Director,” she said, facing Fury and ignoring the speculative look Stark was giving her. “If it is powered by the Tesseract, as you suspect it is, then it may serve as a channel to direct the energy into human form without completely overwhelming and burning them out, as well as to focus Loki’s will on the person in question.”

“That’s your hypothesis?”

“One of several, unfortunately.”

“Very well,” Fury said. “Dr. Banner, please show Mr. Stark where the laboratory is. Thor, Captain, go to the infirmary to have those injuries looked at. Dr. Jones, a moment.”

Banner, recognizing the dismissal, gestured for Stark to follow him. Stark looked like he wanted to talk more, but reluctantly followed them out, trailed by Steve and Thor. Hill, Coulson, and Romanov stayed where they were, clearly in the loop on whatever Fury wanted to talk to her about.

Martha turned to Fury, a resigned look on her face.

“I’m not going to like this, am I?

~*~*~

Martha was right. She didn’t like this, not one bit. She understood why Fury was asking her to do it, but that didn’t make her like the situation any more than she already did. But there was nothing to do at this point, other than simply complete the task and return to her research.

Pressing her thumb against the reader and leaning down so that the scanner could see her retina, she waited until the door opened before stepping inside and entering the room currently housing Loki’s cell. She ignored him, however, and walked straight to the panel monitoring his vitals and began writing them down.

“Come to look at the monster?” Loki asked her, his voice muffled by the glass surrounding him.

“Is that what they’re calling you? SHIELD must have lowered their standards significantly,” Martha replied dryly, not looking up from her notepad. She could have easily access this information from her lab, but Fury had ordered her to come in here in an attempt to see if Loki might give them any information when presented with somebody who clearly wasn’t an agent. She told him that Loki probably wouldn’t be that stupid, but Fury had wanted to try it anyway. So here she was.

“Oh? You don’t consider me monstrous, Dr. Jones?” he asked, walking over so that he was closer to her. “After what I did to Agent Barton and your friend back on the base, what I plan to do to this pitiful planet, you don’t consider me a monster?”

“Not really, no,” Martha told him coolly, ignoring for the moment the fact that he knew her name, that he knew that she and Clint were close, that her friends were dead.

“And you’re the expert?”

“No, but I’ve seen my fair share,” Martha answered, finally turning to look at him. She kept her face impassive, hiding her feelings behind a mask of indifference and boredom. “You don’t even make the top ten.”

“I’m hurt you think so little of me.”

“Somehow, I doubt that.”

A smile grew across his face, but it only made him appear more feral than he already did. “So if you aren’t here to gawk at the monster trapped in the cage, then there’s only one reason why you’re here, Dr. Jones,” he said, leaning against the glass. “You want to know how to reverse what I did to your dear Agent Barton. Don’t look so surprised,” he added quietly. “He told me all about the two of you, after all. He can be quite...talkative.”

“That would be helpful, yes,” Martha retorted, tucking her pencil behind her ear and ignoring the last part he said. “But unless you’ve had a complete change of heart, I don’t really believe you’ll actually give me answers I can trust.” Fury had tried, but the person who drew answers from Loki’s riddles and games wasn’t her. She was good, yes, but not that good. She turned to leave and was halfway to the door before Loki’s voice stopped her.

“Maybe I could give you a case study closer to home so you can unravel this mystery. Perhaps, when this is all done and Earth is mine to rule, I’ll pay a visit to your family.”

Martha froze, unable to move as Loki continued with sadistic glee, “Maybe your brother and his child, or even your sister. Would you like that, Dr. Jones?”

“Touch them, and I will destroy you.” She was surprised by how cold her voice sounded, distant like she wasn’t even in the room. There was nothing in it that gave away the rage she could feel burning inside her, threatening to overwhelm her if she wasn’t careful. How dare he, how _dare_ threaten her family?

“A bold claim for a mortal.” The amused, self-satisfied sound in his voice only added fuel to the fire, and she fought back the urge to use the mechanism Fury had briefly demonstrated to send him plummeting down. He got what he wanted, a reaction from her, a visible weakness that he could exploit if she gave him the chance. She wouldn’t allow that to happen to her again.

“It’s no claim,” she said, turning around. “You touch them, you come within a mile of my family, and I will call in ever favor, every debt that’s owed to me and I will bring you to your knees. You try to run, there will be nowhere in space or time you can escape from me.” She smiled, all teeth and hard edges. “You have my word on that.”

She turned and walked out, not waiting to see his reaction. She strode through the hallways in a daze, not sure where she was going until she found herself at the door to the lab she shared with Banner. Pressing the pad to open the door, she distantly realized how much her hands were shaking.

Martha walked inside, past Banner and Stark towards the table holding Loki’s scepter. She stood there, staring at it when Stark approached her.

“Ah, Dr. Jones isn’t it? You’re friends with the Captain, right? Could you please, for the love of god tell me why he has such an enormous stick up his...”

“Shut up,” she snapped at the billionaire, forcing herself to unclench her hands. She could still feel the rage burning inside her, and it took a level of control she didn’t know she had to not lash out at him. Damn Loki. Damn for using Clint, for killing Hazel and Wilson, for threatening her family, for putting her in this situation.

“Dr. Jones, what happened?” Banner this time, sounding cautious. He, at least, seemed to recognize the fury that was threatening to overwhelm her.

“He threatened my family,” she explained, her voice still cold and furious. She distantly remembered how Timothy had described the Doctor, as ice and fire and rage, and she finally understood how somebody could feel like that. “He threatened to do to them what he did to Clint and Dr. Selvig.” She looked up to meet Stark’s eyes. “I won’t let that happen.”

He studied her face before nodding curtly.

“Bruce, any suggestions for our good doctor friend on how to control her anger?” he asked, turning to Banner. “I know you turned down the huge bag of weed, but please. Let her in on your secret at least before she decides to solve all our problems and vent Loki. Not that I’m necessarily opposed to that option, I’d just like to know what he’s up to first.”

“Somehow I think my solution wouldn’t help her,” Banner answered, coming to stand beside Martha. “But I’ve always found tea makes things better.”

“Or there’s my solution, which is to go places where I’m not allowed,” Stark added, gesturing at the equipment he set up. “Hacking into SHIELD’s files is easier than I thought it would be.”

“As an employee of SHIELD, I probably shouldn’t be hearing this,” Martha told him, taking a deep breath. She had a job to do. She wasn’t going to let Loki win by making her so blind with rage that she ignored that. “But I think I will take Dr. Banner up on his offer of tea.”

“Excellent. Now, if you don’t mind me asking, how did a doctor like yourself get involved with this merry band of paranoid men in black as their expert on aliens? Did they kidnap and probe you?”

Shaking her head, Martha gave a weak laugh. “Not quite,” she answered, pulling up the data that they had from the scepter. If Loki thought he could stop her, could intimidate her, he was wrong.

~*~*~

Stifling a yawn, Martha rubbed her eyes as she set down her pencil. Stark had been giving her grief about using “Luddite” methods, but she found that writing things down helped her think and kept her focused. The sun rising through the panoramic view of the lab had was a sick reminder of what time it was.

They had been working through the night, trying to crack their respective cases. Martha had taken a break to try to find Steve to talk with him what had happened with Loki, but for a man dressed in a spangly spandex outfit, he disappeared surprisingly easily.

“I think I finally have this thing configured correctly,” she said, holding up a small container that Stark had managed to build. They had brainstormed how to counteract the effects of the scepter; it was the energy contained within that allowed Loki to control Clint and Selvig, and it stood to reason that it could be extracted from the body by osmosis. The container was designed to do just that: draw out the energy while providing a mild electric shock to “reboot” the body’s systems, so to speak. They wouldn’t know for certain, however, unless they managed to capture those under Loki’s control.

“Excellent, because I think I’ve finally found my backdoor into Uncle Nick’s hidden bunker,” Stark replied from the lab table he was sitting on, touch screen in front of him. “Gather round, kiddies. Let’s see what secrets SHIELD is hiding from us.”

“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Banner muttered half-heartedly, but both he and Martha moved over to watch Stark flit through the files.

“Wait, stop!” Martha ordered, pointing at something on the screen marked “Phase Two”. “See if you can open that.”

“That does indeed sound promising,” Stark replied, tapping the screen to pull it up. “Any particular reason?”

“I remember seeing something marked Phase Two back in New Mexico,” Martha answered with a frown. “It was a unit set up shortly before I was transferred back to New York. They kept it locked up, though, and the scientists assigned to it didn’t interact with the rest of us much.”

“It’s going to need a few more minutes that we don’t have, although I’m always a fan of stalling tactics,” Stark commented as red warnings flashed across the screen. “On a scale of one to Hulk, how angry do you think he’s going to be?”

“I’ll go with nuclear,” Martha said, spying Fury striding through the hallways. “That was fast.”

“Never underestimate somebody who wants to keep things hidden.”

“What are you doing, Mr. Stark?” Fury demanded, looking at the inventor.

“I was kinda wondering the same thing about you,” Stark answered nonchalantly.

“I thought you were supposed to be looking for the Tesseract, and Dr. Jones trying to find a way to break Loki’s spell.”

“We are,” Banner answered calmly. “The algorithm is locked and we’re sweeping for the signature now. We get a hit, we should have it located within half a mile.”

“And we have a prototype of a device that might counteract Loki’s scepter, but as you can imagine, running trials is a bit difficult,” Martha added, glancing between Fury and the screen.

“So you see, we’ve handled our homework assignments,” Stark continued, while the screen beeped. “So the question of the hour is, what is Phase Two?”

A clank on the table behind Fury drew their attention to the newcomer: Steve. “Phase Two is where SHIELD uses the Cube to make weapons,” Steve said, his hand still on the weapon he’d brought in. “Sorry, your way was taking too long,” Steve told Stark. He looked calm, but Martha could see the anger in his eyes, the betrayal.

“Rogers, it’s not what it looks like,” Fury tried to explain, turning to face the Captain. “We gathered everything we could related to the Tesseract, including...”

“I’m sorry, Nick, what, were you lying?” Stark interrupted, drawing Martha’s attention back to him. He turned the screen around, a diagram of a weapon clearly displayed on the screen.

“Please tell me that my research on the Tesseract’s effects on humans wasn’t used for this,” Martha said quietly, moving to stand by Steve. She could feel the anger that reared its head after confronting Loki start to emerge again, cold and quiet and furious.

“You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?” Romanov’s voice cut through as she entered with Thor. She eyed Banner, her body tense.

“Oh, I was plenty removed, remember? I was in Calcutta, away from all of this,” Banner replied, moving away from her.

“Loki is manipulating you.”

“And you’ve been doing what exactly?”

“You didn’t come because I batted my eyelashes at you,” Romanov answered, moving closer to Banner.

“I’m not leaving because my presence is making you a little twitchy,” Banner argued, walking over to the screen and turning it around. “I want to know why SHIELD is using the Cube to build weapons of mass destruction.”

They all turned to Fury, waiting to see what his response would be. They didn’t have long to wait.

“It’s because of him,” Fury said, pointing at Thor.

“Me?” Thor asked, surprise on his face.

“Last year we had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town,” Fury explained. “Not only did we realize we weren’t alone, but we’re also hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned.”

“That’s rubbish, and you bloody well know that,” Martha interrupted heatedly. “Why do you think UNIT and Torchwood were established, Director? Humans have been protecting this planet just fine from aliens without weapons of mass destruction!”

“That’s particularly rich, coming from you, Dr. Jones,” Fury rounded on her. “Don’t think we aren’t aware the role your friend “the Doctor” plays in these events. What happens when he’s not around to save the day?”

“If you hadn’t noticed, Director, he’s not around now, is he?” Martha snapped.

“Which is why we have to have the capabilities to defend ourselves with...”

“A nuclear deterrent. Because that always works so well,” Stark cut back in.

“Remind me again how you got your fortune Stark.”

“It was your work with the Tesseract that drew Loki and his allies towards you,” Thor interjected. “It was a signal to all the realms that Earth is ready for a higher form of war.”

“You forced our hand,” Fury protested, while Stark and Steve started arguing with each other.

“If that’s what you tell yourself to fall asleep at night,” Martha started, before Romanov and Banner waded into the verbal fray.

The entire situation devolved from there, everybody shouting at everybody else and at nobody in particular. Thor and Martha appeared to be united in their mutual disgust at Fury’s actions, while Stark and Steve circling each other like angry dogs, and Banner and Romanov divided their attention between both factions.

“You speak of control, yet you court chaos,” Thor was saying to Fury when Banner cut in, effectively silencing everybody.

“That’s his MO, isn’t it?” he asked, looking around at everybody. “I mean, what are we, a team? No, we’re a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We’re not a team. We’re a time bomb.”

“You need to step away,” Fury warned Banner, walking towards him.

“Why shouldn’t the man let off a little steam?”

“You damn well know why, Stark,” Steve snapped, brushing off the hand Stark placed on his shoulder. “Back off.”

“I kinda want to have you make me.”

Everybody stopped to stare at the two men glaring at each other.

“Big man in a suit of armor,” Steve said quietly. “Take that away and what are you?”

“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist,” Stark answered stonily. Thor chuckled.

“Both of you, stop it!” Martha snapped. “You’re both grown men. Act like it!”

At least they both had the sense to look ashamed of themselves.

“Agent Romanov, could you please escort Dr. Banner back to his...” Fury began, taking advantage of the momentary lull before Banner interrupted him.

“Where? Back to my _room_? You rented it out, remember?”

“The cell was just...”

“In case you needed to kill me, but you can’t, I tried.”

The room became silenced, everybody’s attention on Banner. Martha covered her mouth, heart clenched.

“I got low,” he continued, unable to stop now that he’d started. “I couldn’t see an end, so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out. So I moved on. I was good, I started helping people until you dragged me back into this freakshow and putting everybody here at risk.” He turned on Romanov, his demeanor switching suddenly switching from cornered to angry. “Do you want to know my secret, Agent Romanov, do you want to know how I stay calm?”

“Dr. Banner,” Steve said as Fury and Romanov unlocked their guns. “Put down the scepter.” They all looked down, realizing that while he was talking, Banner had grabbed Loki’s weapon.

The beep of the machine tracking the Tesseract sounded loud in the otherwise silent room.

“Sorry, kid, you don’t get to see my party trick after all,” Banner muttered, placing the scepter back on the table and walking towards the equipment.

“I can get there faster,” Stark started before Thor cut him off.

“The Tesseract belongs on Asgard,” he said while Steve and Stark started arguing again.

Martha moved towards the table to collect their extraction prototype to give to whoever ended up going. That was it, though. After this was resolved, after the Tesseract and Selvig and Clint were retrieved, she was handing in her notice. She didn’t know if she could continue working here, after what Stark had uncovered about Phase Two and its purpose. It would be a betrayal of everything she’d worked and fought for, and she couldn’t live with that. She was better than that.

Banner’s voice was so quiet, she almost didn’t hear his exclamation. “Oh, god!”

She was turning around to ask him what when the room exploded.


	7. Chapter 7

Ears ringing, Martha pushed herself up from the floor, careful of the broken glass now liberally scattered around the room. The flash of red lights cut through the smoke filling the room, giving it an eerie glare. Stark and Steve were already racing out, leaving her, Fury, and Thor in the wreckage of the lab. Romanov and Banner were nowhere to be seen.

“Lady Martha, are you injured?” She could barely hear Thor, but she appeared to be mostly uninjured, although the adrenaline could be blocking things out.

“I’m fine,” she shouted back, shoving the prototype into her pocket. It didn’t look damaged and it might be needed later. As an afterthought, she grabbed the scepter where it was laying next to her. There was no need to have it be unaccounted for when they were under attack.

She started for the door, trying to navigate through the wreckage when she saw Fury standing up. “Director! Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Jones. Get down there and help evacuate the injured towards the infirmary. Thor, go with her,” he ordered, pulling an earpiece out of his jacket and handing it to her. “Stay in contact.” He didn’t mention the scepter, which Martha interpreted as, _Keep hold of it_.

If the lab was destruction, the hallway outside was pure chaos. Martha struggled to move against the tide of people rushing the other way, trying to escape the blast zone. Thor helped a little, creating a break as they rushed through, but it wasn’t much help. “Where am I going?”

“Engine Three,” Hill’s voice replied, sounding hurried. “There was an explosion triggered by an outside detonation. Be careful, they may be entering from there.”

“Copy that.”

They were about halfway there when a roar reverberated through the corridors, its echos causing the ringing in her ears to intensify.

“That’s the Hulk,” Martha whispered, eyes wide. She hadn’t thought what might be happening with Romanov and Banner.

“If you would excuse me, Lady Martha, but I believe my assistance is required,” Thor said, waiting for Martha’s nod before racing off back where they had come from.

If the hallways were chaos, the area around the damaged engine was hell. Using her free arm to shield her nose and mouth, ignoring her eyes watering from the smoke and the stench of burnt flesh filling her nose, she pushed past people fleeing.

“How many are still there, Agent?” she asked when she found somebody leaning against a bulkhead.

“I don’t know, ma’am,” the agent replied, rubbing his forehead and smearing soot across it. “But Captain Rogers just went by a few minutes ago to help with the engine.”

“All right, gather those you can and start looking for survivors,” Martha ordered, straightening up. “I want everybody that we find there to go to the infirmary, whether they have visible injuries or not.” Other would-be rescuers started crowding around her, and she could feel the weight of their eyes on her. “Our priority right now is to move anybody who aren’t mobile, be they injured or unconscious. Don’t play the hero,” she added, meeting the gaze of the first agent she had talked to. “Rescue those you can, but don’t put yourself in a position where we lose you as well. _Do you understand?_ ”

“Yes, ma’am!” they all chorused, and Martha nodded.

“Let’s go,” she ordered, and they scattered. One of the agents handed her a breathing mask, and she awkwardly donned it one-handedly, not wanting to let go of the scepter in case anything happened, before heading into the shattered corridors.

Martha was wrapping bandage on a spurting wound when one of the agents who accompanied her yelled, “Perimeter breach, we have hostiles!”

Martha instinctively ducked as the area was sprayed with gunfire. The agent fired back until the gun clicked, half hidden from the collapsed wall that had trapped their victim not moments before.

“They’re moving towards the engine,” the agent shouted, switching magazines in his gun.

“Stark, Steve, you have hostiles incoming!” Martha said, pressing her earpiece. The scepter dug into her knees from where she was kneeling on it, but she ignored it.

“Really? Couldn’t tell,” Steve replied, the sound of gunfire distinct over the radio.

“Dr. Jones, move away from the engine and towards a secure area,” Fury’s voice cut through, the sound of shots firing from his end.

“But, si-”

“That is an order, Dr. Jones!”

“Take a left at the next hallway,” her patient gasped, grabbing her hand. “It should take you towards the armory.” She glanced down at the scepter pointedly. “Don’t think you want that falling into their hands.”

“Go, I got this,” her helper said, dropping down next to her. “They’re moving away from here. I can get her to the infirmary from here.”

Seeing that she was outnumbered, Martha nodded, taking off her breathing mask and handing it to her patient. “Be safe,” she warned them, getting to her feet and grabbing the scepter. She made it to the hallway the mechanic had pointed out and was a few steps inside when the ship lurched suddenly, throwing her against the wall.

“What’s going on?” she asked, struggling to remain standing and keep moving.

“Engine One is gone,” Hill answered, voice tight. “We’re going down.”

“Jones, keep going. Try to find Coulson and keep an eye out for Barton,” Fury told her. “He shut down our engines and is making his way to the detention level. Does anybody else copy?”

“This is Agent Romanov. I copy,” Romanov said, her voice shaky.

Martha quietly switched from hallway to catwalks, doing her best to keep the glow of the scepter hidden. If Loki was trying to break out, he would be looking for this, which made her a target. She desperately wished she had her perception filter with her, just to make things harder for Loki and safer for herself. It wasn’t foolproof, but it at least was another line of defense.

The creak of metal to the left of her was her only sign that somebody was coming. Doing her best to stifle her breathing, she pressed up against the nearest wall, trying to hide in plain sight. It wasn’t enough.

She whipped around, pointing the scepter at a figure pointing a notched arrow directly at her.

“Hello, Doc,” Clint Barton’s voice rang out in the otherwise silent space. “I was afraid you weren’t going to make our date.” He smirked at her, his eyes a cold, unnatural blue to rival that of the Tesseract, and cruel as they looked at her.

Martha remained silent, unable to come up with a response she could force past her suddenly tight throat. She could feel the weight of the prototype in her pocket, but she couldn’t chance reaching for it now. She knew how fast Clint was. She also knew that any affection that he might have for her wasn’t any guarantee that he would be able to fight the energy of the scepter long enough so that he wouldn’t kill her.

“What, nothing to say?” he continued, walking towards her. She backed up, adjusting her grip on the staff, not taking her eyes off of him.

“Fight it, Clint,” Martha whispered. “Please.”

“Why should I? It’s shown me so much,” Clint answered, the smirk still on his face as he walked closer to her. “All those secrets you never shared, Martha Jones, are like an open book to me now.”

“Clint, stop!” Martha kept backing up, trying to keep space between the two of them. “Please don’t make me use this,” she pleaded, feeling sick at the thought.

“You aren’t going to kill me, Martha. You could never do that to somebody you cared for.”

“There’s always a first time.”

“You aren’t a killer, Martha. You forget, I know you. You wouldn’t...”

He paused and twisted to aim at the figure that had just dropped down behind him.

“Martha, run!” Romanov ordered, grabbing Clint’s bow as he fired and missed her.

She didn’t need to be told twice. Slipping underneath the railings, she landed on the catwalk below with a thump, wincing at the shock running through her legs. Barely taking time to catch her breath, Martha raced away from the brawling agents, trying to get as much distance between them as she made her way in the general direction of the armory.

Pausing and gasping for breath, Martha looked between two corridors. She didn’t know where she was at this point, but she knew she had to keep moving, keep away from those trying to find the scepter. Taking a chance, she turned right, only to come up short when faced with a dead end.

A hand gripped her arms, and she found herself spun around and slammed into the bulkhead.

“Did you think I’d forgotten about this?” Loki asked, his lips curled into a snarl as he leaned over her. He used one arm to press down on her throat while reaching for the scepter with the other, close enough that she could feel his breath on her face as she struggled for air. “Did you really think you could outsmart me?”

More instinct than anything, Martha slammed her head forward, hearing a satisfying crack as bone connected with Loki’s nose. He reared back, letting go of Martha and dropping the scepter to the ground.

“Yes,” Martha gasped, struggling to stay upright, lungs burning from lack of oxygen and the smoke she inhaled earlier, and head ringing from impact. “Because you’re just like him. “ She closed her eyes, trying to separate the Master and Loki in her mind and only partially succeeding before opening them again. “In the end, your arrogance will destroy you.”

“You dare—” he began, blood streaming down his face before the sound of a weapon stopped him.

“Please step away from Dr. Jones,” Agent Coulson said calmly, a massive gun in his hands with its barrel glowing a threatening orange. Despite the chaos around them, his suit and hair looked untouched.

Martha had never been so glad to see anybody in her life.

“Like this?” Coulson asked, walking closer as Loki backed away warily from him. “We started working on the prototype after you sent the Destroyer. Even I don’t know what it does. Do you want to find out?”

A flicker of shadows were all the warning Martha had.

“No!” she screamed, or at least, tried to, watching helplessly as the pointed end of the scepter erupted from Coulson’s chest, Loki standing behind him.

“Now if you would excuse me,” Loki said, removing the scepter and watching Coulson crumple to the ground. “I have an appointment to keep with Dr. Selvig.”

Martha scrambled towards Coulson, stripping off her jacket to press onto the wound and kneeling.

“You’re going to lose,” Coulson told him, resisting Martha’s attempts to remove his shirt to see how bad the wound was. “It’s in your nature.”

“And you call me arrogant,” Loki replied, stopping and turning around to face them. “How am I—”

Martha shielded her eyes as the gun went off, its orange blast throwing Loki through several walls.

“So that’s what it does,” Coulson whispered, sliding down further. “Wondered what...”

“No, no, Phil, stay with me,” Martha urged, catching his head as he trailed off. “Stay awake!” She blinked, and for a brief, terrifying moment she was back in the ruins of New York, trying to save Phil after he tried to draw the Toclafane away from where she was hiding. “You can’t die on me, Phil!”

“You never call me Phil,” Coulson muttered, half-lidded eyes looking at her, his voice gurgling, flecks of blood starting appear at the corners of his mouth.

“I need an emergency medical team, now!” Martha half-shouted, half-pleaded into her earpiece. “Agent Coulson is down, stab wound to the chest, heavy external bleeding, most likely internal bleeding as well.”

“We have a lock on your position, Dr. Jones,” an unfamiliar voice replied. “We will try to get there as soon as we can.”

“They’re coming,” she told him, continuing to press down on the wound, ignoring the blood seeping through to her hands. “Just hold on until then. You’re going to be fine, Phil. Stay with me.”

“Of course I am,” he said, giving her a weak smile. “Staying right here...”

She stayed there, kneeling beside him, ignoring the Helicarrier’s fall coming to a stop and the sound of engines slowly coming back to life. It wasn’t until she heard footsteps that she looked up to see the approaching medics.

“They’re coming,” she said, looking down at Phil. “You’re going to be okay.”

“Never doubted it,” he answered, his voice clear but faint. “Never doubted you.”

~*~*~

Agent Romanov found Martha leaving one of the bathrooms half an hour later. The medics had insisted she stay in the main area to be examined, leaving Coulson’s operation to others. As much as she wanted to insist on being involved to help make sure he survived, she understood their rationale. She wouldn’t want somebody in this state to be operating on her right now. So she sat while they shined a light in her eye to see if there was a concussion, breathing in oxygen out of a mask and waiting for any news on Coulson’s status.

Finally, feeling the walls were about to close in on her and finding herself drifting in and out of nightmarish memories, she slipped out of the infirmary. Finding a bathroom, she stepped inside, trying to scrub her hands free of the blood that was still caked on. She stood there for at least ten minutes, until her skin was rubbed raw and only flecks remained. But even then, she didn’t feel clean.

Stepping outside, she jumped back in surprise to see Romanov leaning against the opposite wall, a determined look on her face, a bruise starting to bloom on her right cheek.

“Do you still have the prototype for the device you and Stark came up with to break Loki’s spell?” she asked, getting straight to the point.

Martha reached into her pocket and extracted the device. She’d forgotten she’d put it there. Giving it a quick once-over, she saw it wasn’t damaged. Fortunately, everything looked to be in order despite the last...God, had it only been an hour since the lab exploded and threw everything into chaos?

“Come with me,” Romanov ordered, walking down the hallway, clearly expecting Martha to follow her lead.

“How is he?” Martha asked, lengthening her stride to keep up with the taller woman. There’s only one person they could be going to.

“Still under Loki’s control,” Romanov answered, a grim look on her face. “He snapped out of it for a little while when I hit him on the head, but whatever Loki’s done to him came back.”

“There’s no guarantee this is going to work,” Martha warned Romanov, stopping in front of a confinement cell. “It could hurt him more than help him.”

“I know the risks, but it’s the best option we have,” Romanov said, pressing the pad on the door and walking inside, Martha trailing behind.

Clint lay on the bed, restraints on his wrists and ankles. He turned his head to face them as they walked in.

“Oh, look, you brought the Doctor to see if she could fix me,” he sneered, his eyes still Tesseract blue.

Martha ignored him, placing the device over his heart, the same place that Loki had placed his scepter before placing Clint under his control. Not taking her eyes off of Clint’s face, she activated the device, praying that it would do what it was supposed to and not damage him any more than he might already be.

Clint arced off of the bed, his mouth open in a silent scream as blue light flooded the empty chamber on the prototype, sucking out the energy from the scepter. He writhed on the bed, straining against the straps that held him in place before going limp, his eyes closed and breathing heavily.

Martha quickly removed the device and placed it on the table next to the bed, then placed her hand on Clint’s neck to check for a pulse.

“It’s steady,” she told Romanov, leaning back. “Now you wait.”

“What about you?”

“Somebody has to give this to Stark or whoever’s left to analyze,” she answered, not meeting the agent’s eyes. It was a bad excuse. Martha might as well acknowledge it for what it was. She just couldn’t stay. She needed to get away from Clint and breathe and try to erase the image of him pointing an arrow at her. And if she couldn’t erase it, she could at least bury it enough to get herself together and do her job.

“They’re on the bridge. Fury’s talking to them,” Romanov said instead, taking the lone chair in the room. “I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

Martha nodded, grateful that Romanov was giving her this out. Gathering the glowing capsule, she made her way towards the bridge. All the hallways bore signs of a struggle—smoke, bent metal, bullet holes. The bridge was in worse shape, with entire consoles destroyed and wires hanging from the ceiling. Fury stood overlooking the scene, hands clasped behind his back.

“You here to hand in your resignation, Dr. Jones?” he asked, not looking at her.

“No, I’m actually looking for Stark,” she replied, not moving beyond the table. “Where is everybody?”

“Mr. Stark and Captain Rogers went for a walk,” Fury said, his attention still focused on the slow repairs on the bridge. “Loki trapped Thor in his cell and ejected him, before his little rendezvous with you and Agent Coulson. We don’t know whether Thor survived the fall or not. Loki managed to escape with the scepter to God-knows-where.”

“And Dr. Banner?”

“His status is unknown as well.”

Martha took a deep breath before speaking. “Right then. I’ll just go look for Stark then.”

“I would suggest the corridor where you and Coulson had your encounter,” Fury said, turning around. “At least that’s where I assume they went.”

Martha nodded, swallowing the rising bile in her throat, before walking away. She had a job to do. She paused at the doorway, turning to face the Director.

“You will have my resignation, however, when this is all over,” she warned him. Not waiting to see Fury’s response, she left.

She found Stark and Steve talking heatedly on opposite sides of a pool of drying blood. Ignoring her nausea, Martha approached them, catching Steve saying, “He has the same blood on his hands that Loki does. But right now we got to put that behind us.” He caught sight of Martha and paused, a relieved look on his face.

“Thank god,” he breathed, pushing past Stark and enveloping her in a hug. “Fury said that Loki didn’t do anything do you, but...”

“Let’s just say that neither of us are too trusting of Nick right now,” Stark interrupted tersely.

“Understandable.” Martha pulled back from Steve’s hug and handed the canister to Stark. “It worked, or at least, made the appearance of working. Agent Romanov is with Barton now to see how he reacts.”

“At least we have something to show for our efforts last night,” Stark remarked, looking down at the floor. “But we still don’t know where Loki’s keeping the Tesseract.”

“He needs a power source,” Steve said, getting straight to the point. “If we can find that...”

“He’s making it personal,” Stark interrupted again, glancing up at them.

“That’s not the point—”

“That is the point. That’s Loki’s point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?”

“To show that he can,” Martha answered tersely, feeling her body tense. “That he’s more powerful than us.”

“Exactly! He knows he has to beat us to win, but he wants to be seen doing it,” Stark said, starting to speak faster, the ideas coming to him quickly. “He wants an audience.”

“Like in Stuttgart.”

“Yeah, but that’s just previews, this is opening night.” Stark began to pace, gesturing with his hands. “And Loki, he’s a full-tilt diva. He wants flowers, he wants a parade, he wants a monument built to the sky with his name...” Stark paused, and suddenly it dawned on Martha where Loki was headed. “Son of a bitch.”

“What’s the plan?” Steve asked Stark, who was already rushing down the catwalk past them. He seemed to have figured it out as well.

“I try to get my armor back into flying condition and get back to New York. You meet me there. I’ll whip up another container while I’m at it for Selvig.”

“Where’s Agent Romanov?” Steve asked Martha, gesturing for her to lead.

“This way,” Martha answered, leading the way. It wasn’t far, and soon they were outside the cell door. Martha spied Romanov inside sitting on the bed, but couldn’t see Clint. The redhead’s posture was relaxed, however, which meant that his absence wasn’t due to any ill effects from his treatment.

Martha felt the knot in her chest lessen tightly at that realization.

“Time to go,” Steve announced, looking at Romanov.

“Go where?”

“I’ll explain on the way. Can you fly one of those jets?”

The door to the bathroom opened and Clint stepped out, drying his hands. He faltered a bit when he saw Martha, but turned his gaze on Steve. “I can,” he said quietly.

Steve looked at Romanov, who nodded, before turning to Martha. “Make sure he’s fit to fly,” he ordered. “And if she clears you, suit up if you have something, Agent Barton.”

“I’ll grab it while Dr. Jones works,” Romanov said, leaving.

Martha waited for Clint to take a seat before walking towards him. “Look at me,” she said quietly, raising a finger so that he could follow it with his eyes while she observed his pupils. “Who are the president and vice-president?” she asked, moving on to test his memory.

“Barack Obama and Joe Biden,” he answered without hesitation.

Martha nodded, and continued with an abbreviated test for a concussion. It wasn’t up to code, but given the time limitations they were operating under, it was the best that she could do.

“You should be fine, although I recommend a more thorough examination once this is over,” Martha told him.

He reached out to touch her but before his hand came into contact with her arm, she flinched and took a half-step back. They both froze for an instant before Clint let his arm drop.

“I’ll go let Steve know you’re fit to fly,” she blurted out before fleeing, suddenly unable to breathe. She made it down to the next corner before stopping, leaning against the wall and trying to pull herself back together from her panic attack. Her nails bit into her hands and she slowly calmed down her breathing and refocused her thoughts. _Wait until this is over_ , she told herself. _Hold yourself together until then._

She found Steve walking back towards where she had left, a new canister in his hand. “Stark gave me this for if we can get to Selvig,” he said after Martha gave him the news about Clint.

“Good.” Martha reached up and wrapped her arms around Steve, giving him a hug. “I’ll be on the first jet back to New York to make sure you’re OK,” she whispered into his ear.

“Deal,” he replied, pulling back and giving her a reassuring smile.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway, and they turned to see Romanov and Clint coming towards them. Clint had changed, into a sleeveless black top detailed in purple, his bow in hand and quiver on his back. He didn’t look at Martha, staring pointedly at Steve instead.

“We’re ready,” he said.

Waiting until they left for the hanger bay, Martha quickly made her way back to the infirmary.

“How is he?” Martha asked one of the medics, who was in between patients. The crowd had thinned somewhat, those with lesser injuries discharged to keep the Helicarrier running while making sure the infirmary’s capacities weren’t overtaxed.

“He just got out of surgery, but he’s still unconscious” he replied, not needing any clarification who “he” was. “He lost a lot of blood, and there was massive trauma to his internal organs from the stab wound Loki gave him.”

Martha nodded, and walked back towards the small recovery area, where several of the more severely injured agents lay.

Gazing down at the pale face of Phil Coulson, Martha gave his hand a squeeze. “You’re going to be fine, Coulson,” she promised, unsure if he could hear her. She may not have been able to save Phil back in the Year That Never Was, but that was then. She’d gotten her second chance here.

With that comforting thought, Martha walked back into the infirmary to see if there was anything she could help with. She would be on that first jet back to New York, like she promised Steve. Until then, however, she had work to do.


	8. Chapter 8

The helicopter touched down on Stark Tower’s ruined roof. The monument to Stark’s ego was missing all the letters minus the A from his name on the side.

Standing just outside of the cockpit, Martha surveyed the damaged cityscape of Midtown Manhattan with a frown. Several buildings had chunks missing from the sides, and one or two had been almost leveled, a silent testimony to the battle that had taken place. Even from the air, she could see the bodies of the aliens and their leviathans littering the ground.

Martha hadn’t watched the battle on the Helicarrier; instead, she focused on helping the overtaxed medics onboard. It wasn’t until she heard the cheers that she packed up. With a first aid kit in hand, she made her way to the hanger, checking in on Coulson one last time before she left. He was still unconscious, but his color was looking better than it had been.

Careful to avoid the glass shattered around the landing pad, Martha watched the helicopter take off again, headed for the streets below to start cleaning up the mess. She’d join them to assist with the collection and disposal of alien bodies soon, but she had a promise to keep first. The team would be debriefed later, and another helicopter would take the prisoner and the Tesseract into SHIELD custody.

“Well, look who arrived late to the party. No shawarma for you,” Tony shouted to her, without explanation.

They were all there, beaten and battered—well, except the Hulk—but they were alive. Much like New York City, if she wanted to think metaphorically. Selvig was there, too, seated between Romanov and Clint, his head between his hands and the Tesseract at his feet.

“There’s shawarma?” she asked, walking towards the assembled group. Loki sat at the center, Thor’s hand on his shoulder and the Hulk standing behind him. Loki had managed to reset the smashed nose Martha had given him, but a new array of cuts decorated his pale face.

“There will be, once we make sure Loki’s secure,” Romanov answered, lounging on a destroyed sofa, Loki’s scepter balanced on her knees. “Got you a souvenir, by the way.”

“I can see that,” Martha said, eyeing the weapon as she set her first aid kit on the bar and extracted a pair of gloves. “Although I’m not sure what I’d do with it.” She didn’t really want it, either, but she wasn’t going to say that at this point. Romanov might be joking, after all; it was hard to tell with her.

“It would look nice mounted over a fireplace, all trophy-like,” Stark suggested. “Set it up as a monument to Coulson.”

“Monument?” Martha asked, looking at each of the Avengers.

“Because he died, Martha,” Steve answered quietly, breaking the awkward pause that followed Martha’s question. “You were there.” Everybody looked at her: Thor in confusion, Steve and Tony in pity, Romanov and Clint with shuttered expressions, and Loki in bored curiosity. It was difficult to tell what (or if) the Hulk was thinking.

“No, I’m pretty sure he’s alive,” Martha said slowly, frowning slightly. “Considering I saw him just before coming here. He’s unconscious, yeah, but definitely still alive.” Silence filled the room again, and Martha could feel her anger stirring. “Oh, please tell me Fury didn’t.”

“Oh, he did,” Stark said, his voice deadly quiet. “Of all the manipulative, underhanded...” It devolved from there, as he let loose a particularly inventive stream of swears, switching from English to French, with some added Urdu, for roughly five minutes. Even Romanov looked impressed by the time he wound down.

Martha shook her head and got to work. “All of you should spent the night in some kind of medical facility, you know. I’m not sure if any of you will actually listen, but I’d recommend it,” she told them as she started to clean a particularly nasty cut on Romanov’s arm. The agent glared at her, but didn’t argue. “I don’t have the capabilities to see if you have any internal injuries.”

“I’ll see to it,” Steve answered, sounding like he was doing his best to prevent an outburst similar to Stark’s.

“After this shawarma Tony Stark speaks of,” Thor objected.

“After shawarma,” Steve amended. Martha shook her head in resignation and bandaged the wound.

Clint was next, his arms and face covered in myriad of small cuts. Martha knelt in front of him, retrieving a pair of tweezers to extract the shards of glass embedded in his skin. He didn’t look at her or speak, even when she was tending to the cuts on his face. Just like back on the Helicarrier, after she had flinched away from him. Martha finished as quickly as she could before moving on to her next patient.

She thought she saw Clint’s eyes flicker towards her as she started peeling back the cloth from a stab wound to his abdomen, but he was staring stonily ahead when she glanced back at him. She didn’t know how she felt about that. The only thing she really felt other than relieved was numb.

“So, Dr. Jones, do I still rank so low on your list of monsters?” Loki asked when she finally reached him last of all.

Everybody tensed, and Thor’s hand tightened on Loki’s shoulder.

Martha smirked and kept her posture relaxed. “I’ve still defeated worse,” she told him coldly. “Now hold still. This might sting a little.”

~*~*~

Martha barely saw any members of the team in the next few days. Fury had placed her in charge of a task force assigned to autopsy and analyze the Chitauri debris, effectively delaying her inevitable resignation. She barely had enough time to breathe, let alone think between trying to set up a lab, figure out which scientists in SHIELD’s employ she could transfer on short notice, and hunting for a place to store the bodies in the interim.

In addition to that, she had to field frantic phone calls from her family and Torchwood Three. Martha had returned from scouting storage locations to find a series of messages from Gwen, culminating in a threat to fly to New York and sic Jack on SHIELD. Martha immediately returned that call.

Fury was a dead man.

Jane and Darcy stopped by separately on their way home from wherever they had been relocated to after Loki’s attack on the New Mexico base. Martha wasn’t present for the reunion between the scientist and the god, but according to Darcy (because Jane and Thor hadn’t resurfaced yet), it was “worthy of the most epic chick flick.” When Jane finally arrived to say hello hours later, Martha stared at the scarf covering the scientist’s neck with a raised eyebrow.

“Shut up,” Jane muttered, stealing a chair.

“So are the rumors I heard true?” Martha asked, turning her attention back to wrangling the permits she needed. “You’re moving here?”

“The Bifrost still isn’t fixed,” Jane answered, playing with a mug Martha had left out. “And Tony Stark said he’d give me the lab space I’d need, once he rebuilds the tower.” She brightened at the thought. “State of the art, access to all the latest technology, and not at all under SHIELD control.”

“You’re excited about that last bit, aren’t you?” Jane just grinned.

She left a short time later to finalize the relocation of some of her more delicate equipment from New Mexico, leaving Martha alone in her borrowed office. SHIELD’s New York base was still a mess, and she wanted peace and quiet while she sorted things out.

Later that day, after Martha finally was able to convince UNIT to trade lab space for access to the autopsies, her mobile rang.

“Hello?” she answered, filling in the relevant forms for Fury and cradling the phone against her shoulder.

“We’re sending Loki back tomorrow,” Steve told her, getting right to the point. “I thought you might want to be there for that.”

“Why?” Martha asked, putting down her pen and giving Steve her full attention.

“It could give you closure,” Steve suggested and Martha made a face. He knew her too well. “And if that fails, when was the last time you actually saw the sun?”

“Sunshine is overrated. It just leads to wrinkles and skin cancer. Trust me, I’m a doctor. I went to medical school to learn these things.”

“That’s what I thought.” He paused, before continuing, “Take a break for at least tomorrow afternoon and come with us. Then you can go back to your lab.”

“Fine, I’ll be there,” Martha sighed, giving in. She didn’t even need Steve in the room to see his puppy-dog eyes. “When and where?”

The next day, Martha walked through Central Park to the meeting location Steve had given her. She’d been digging through her closet, looking for something somewhat presentable to wear when she stumbled upon her old red leather jacket from her days with the Doctor. It was a bit silly, but wearing the jacket felt like donning armor, fortifying herself against what was to come, and she felt safer than she had in days.

Steve had offered to give her a ride, but she had refused. Her flat wasn’t that far from Central Park, and she could use the walk, although she wouldn’t admit it to anyone. Her nightmares had returned, worse than ever, combining the familiar images of the Master and the Toclafane and the defeated Earth with Loki and his Chitauri. Last night had been particularly awful, the Master standing over her with a brainwashed Clint at his side. She needed the time to prepare herself to see Loki again.

Surprisingly, Stark was the first person there, leaning against a burgundy car that probably cost more than Martha would make in three years.

“Dr. Jones, so glad you could join us in our little farewell party for our godly friends and foes,” he greeted her. “It’s the final performance of our little superhero boy band, plus the token girls.”

“Were you planning on saying that around Agent Romanov?”

His mouth twitched. “I like all my body parts attached, thank you very much.”

The sound of motors drew their attention as a black van and car, each bearing the SHIELD logo, led by a motorcycle, approached them. “Speak of the devils, and they shall appear.”

Clint and Romanov emerged from the car, both dressed in casual clothes, although Clint was wearing sunglasses that hid his eyes. They stood together, across from where Martha was standing by Tony. Steve dismounted from his bike, exchanging a nod with the pair before coming to stand next to Martha.

“See, the sun’s not too bad,” he teased, smile widening at Martha’s mock-glare. He sobered, however, as the doors to the van opened. Selvig came out first, looking frailer than he had only two weeks before and clutching a cylindrical device to his chest. Banner followed him, looking ruffled but less burdened than he had aboard the Helicarrier. In his hand, he held the metal briefcase containing the Tesseract. Finally, Thor emerged, leading a bound and gagged Loki.

Martha stared steadily at Loki throughout the process of extracting the Tesseract and placing it into Selvig’s container. She wasn’t the only one. From across the semi-circle, she could see Clint focusing on Loki, smirking slightly when Romanov leaned up to whisper something into his ear. Loki glanced at Martha, holding her gaze for a moment before turning his attention back to his brother. Rage burned in his pale eyes, rage and cunning and calculation. He might have been defeated, but he wasn’t broken.

She had a feeling that he would be coming back to exact his revenge on them one day.

Finally, everything was set. Thor looked around the assembled humans and nodded gravely, both in acknowledgement and as a promise to return. As soon as Loki grasped the free handle on the container, Thor gave his a twist, and the bright blue energy of the Tesseract enveloped the brothers, shooting them upwards to the sky for a brief, glorious moment before they dissipated into the spring air.

Martha slipped away soon afterwards, as the Avengers began saying their goodbyes to each other, feeling even more like an intruder. Though she had been involved in the proceedings, she wasn’t a member of the team, and she needed some time to herself.

She wandered through Central Park with no real goal in mind. She found herself sitting at a bench overlooking the ground that had been home to the Hooverville over seventy years ago when she and the Doctor had visited. There was no sign of it now, of course: the lawn was now full of children laughing and people starting to recover from the events that had overtaken their city.

That was human nature, after all. Rebounding after setbacks and devastation, always finding something to look ahead to. Humans might be flawed, chaotic creatures, but in the end, they were always hopeful, always finding ways to begin anew when disaster struck. Martha smiled, taking in the scene before her.

It was over, or at least it was mostly over. Now all that was left was the rebuilding.

~*~*~

From the sanctity of the office she’d commandeered after moving into UNIT’s lab, Martha put her head in her hands and did her best to stave off a panic attack. Her chest tightened, and she could feel her hands becoming numb and her heart beating faster and faster and she swore she could hear the Toclafane coming for her. One deep breath, followed by another, she fought to assert control over her body. Slowly, far too slowly, the sound faded from her ears and her heartbeat returned to normal. Only the faint trembling in her hands remained, a sign of how her life was slowly starting to fall apart around her.

Just like the city, the Avengers and everyone around them were rebuilding. Coulson was recovering, though still on medical leave, and despite his best efforts wasn’t allowed to work yet. Martha continued to visit him every few days, just to reassure herself that he wasn’t dead like the rest of the team had thought. He hadn’t mentioned her calling him “Phil”, but Martha wasn’t naïve enough to think he’d forgotten.

The Avengers had scattered. Banner was “out in the wind,” Stark was throwing himself into the rebuilding effort, and Steve was doing his best to help by reaching out to those affected by the battle, especially children and veterans. Martha didn’t know what Romanov was doing. Clint and Selvig had meetings with psychologists to discuss what they had gone through.

As for Martha, she focused on her job more than ever, trying to ignore the fusion nightmares that weren’t going away and the sensation she was slowly being pulled apart.

It had started shortly after returning from Hazel’s funeral, when she began having flashbacks to the Year That Never Was that left her gasping for breath and wanting to curl up and hide for hours and clutch for a key that was tucked away in the knapsack under her bed. She tried avoiding the worst hit parts of Midtown; the destroyed buildings just gave her more fuel for her nightmares both sleeping and waking, but that didn’t help. Her past was starting to bleed into her present at an alarming rate, and she could feel herself slipping the more she tried to hold herself together.

People were starting to notice, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. Tish and her mum were calling close to every other day “just to talk.” Darcy and Jane kept trying to schedule girls’ nights to draw Martha out, but she kept finding excuses to postpone or cancel. One day, they would give up, but Martha doubted it would be soon. Steve just gave her an understanding look and dragged her out on long walks that lasted hours. She was sure the only reason Jack and the rest weren’t calling was because they were off in India tracking down something that Ianto had been vague about.

Meanwhile, Fury’s apparently infinite quest to prolong Martha’s stay continued: he assigned her to meet with Clint and Selvig to make sure there were no lasting damages from their experiences under Loki’s control.

“Dr. Jones?” a timid voice asked from the doorway, snapping her out of her thoughts. Her assistant stood there, notebook in hand. “Agent Barton is here for his check-up. He’s waiting in your lab. And you have an appointment with Agent Hill first thing tomorrow.”

Martha closed her eyes and nodded. She’d forgotten about that. “Thank you, Martina. I’ll be out of the office for the rest of the afternoon, then, if anybody is looking for me.”

Martina nodded and left, leaving Martha to gather her things. It hadn’t been a good day so far. In addition to her aborted panic attack moments ago, she’d been up half the night trying to avoid the inevitable nightmare. She didn’t know how much longer her luck would hold and her co-workers would start noticing what her friends already had.

Clint was sitting down when she entered her lab, drumming his fingers absently on his leg. He didn’t look up when Martha walked in, only pausing briefly to acknowledge her presence before resuming his tapping.

“Please stop that,” Martha said, somewhat sharper than intended. She could be imagining things, but she could swear she heard the Master’s distinctive “tap-tap tap-tap.”

He stopped, leaving an awkward silence only briefly interrupted by the sound of Martha’s typing as she pulled up the relevant reports on her computer.

“Have there been any negative side-effects since we last talked?” she asked, turning back to Clint.

“None,” he answered curtly. That’s how he’d been the past two visits to her, and in every run-in they’d had since the Helicarrier. Not that there were many of those. He seemed to be actively avoiding her as much as Martha was avoiding everybody. But the bitter reminder of how much things had changed in such a short time still hurt.

“That’s good,” she said. She turned the screen around, so that he could see the data displayed. “There’s nothing in the work that I’ve done on your blood to indicate that what Loki did to you left any changes on your body. Everything is the same as it was on your last physical.”

“So are we done then, Doc?” He was already slipping on his jacket, getting ready to leave.

It was the word “Doc” that brought her up short. He’d never called her that before, and it might have been that combined with the impersonal tone that made her stiffen. It reminded her too much of bright blue eyes, taunts, and drawn bows, which, coupled with the rest of her day, brought her closer to the brink than before.

“No, _Agent Barton_ , we’re not done,” she replied, crossing her arms and emphasising his title.

“Really? Because I thought you just gave me a clean bill of health, which was the whole purpose of these little visits.”

“You don’t get to call me ‘Doc’. Ever.” she said, meeting his eyes and trying to keep the hurt and anger out of her voice. “I think you know why.”

“Whatever you say, Dr. Jones,” he answered with a shrug. “Is that all?”

His nonchalance just made Martha angrier. “Are you even listening to what I’m saying? Or are you so wrapped up in your own suffering and guilt to pay attention?”

Clint’s jaw tightened and he glared at her. “Maybe I’m just trying to put myself back together after Loki decided my brain made a good plaything for him,” he shot back. “Unless you forgot about that.”

“Do you honestly think I can forget what happened?” Martha asked quietly, matching his glare with one of her own. “Because I don’t. I see it every time I close my eyes, I see that bloody security feed from the base. I see Hazel’s name on the list of casualties. I see him threatening to do to my family what he did to you and Selvig. I don’t think I can ever forget, and it’s the only thing I want to do.”

“Do you think I can forget the fact that even as Loki was controlling me, a small part was locked up watching?” Clint countered, moving closer to Martha. “I remember everything that happened, Martha, right down to me aiming an arrow at you.”

Martha didn’t know what to say to that. She’d assumed that he remembered bits and pieces, but to have been trapped inside his own mind while Loki used him to further his plans... She couldn’t imagine what that must have been like for him.

Distantly, she could hear her head pounding, slowly coming together in the distinctive pattern that had gone from haunting her nightmares to dogging her daylight hours.

“We’re done now,” she said. “You can leave if you want.”

He paused before nodding curtly, taking in her face and looking a bit like he wanted to stay. But instead, he did what she asked and left, leaving her alone in the lab, doing her best to ignore the sound of drums mingling with Loki’s laughter and utterly failing.

~*~*~

It was only by the grace of God that Martha remembered she had an appointment with Agent Hill the next morning. She’d had a bad night and it took more willpower than it should have to drag herself to work that morning. Hill beat her there, however, and was already outside Martha’s lab when she walked up.

“So what is it you wanted to talk about?” Martha asked, unlocking the door. “You didn’t specify when you called to make the appointment.

Hill didn’t answer right away, instead glancing around the lab before focusing on Martha. “I actually came to talk about you,” she said quietly.

“Me?”

“Yes, you, Dr. Jones,” Hill replied, sitting on one of the stools and gesturing for Martha to sit. “I was talking to Agent Coulson the other day, just to see how he’s doing, and he mentioned that you seemed...‘scattered’ was the word he used. When he says something like that, I’ve learned to pay attention.”

“So you’re here to check in on me?” Martha asked, starting to feel irritated. “Thank you for the concern, but I’m fine. Really,” she added, after Hill gave her a disbelieving look.

“When was the last time you slept without having a nightmare?” Hill replied quietly. “Or the last time you were able to go to Midtown without a panic attack? You’ve been isolating yourself ever since the invasion, hoping that nobody will notice what’s going on. You’re not fine, Dr. Jones. We both know it.”

Hill paused, looking down at her hands before glancing back up at Martha. “I was in Manhattan a few blocks away when the towers fell,” she said, her tone shifting, becoming less professional and more personal. It was strange, almost surreal, and it threw Martha more than a little. “I was fine, for the most part, afterwards, just a few nightmares here and there. Nothing I couldn’t handle on my own. And then came one of my first missions for SHIELD. The details are still classified, but something triggered me, and I started flashing back to that day and having panic attacks. I tried to hide it as best I could, but eventually people started to notice. Finally, my mentor, Val, dragged me in to see a psychologist.

“I was diagnosed with PTSD, Dr. Jones,” Hill continued solemnly. “I argued with him, said that there was no way I could have it. It wasn’t until a week later that I went to see the psychologist again to hear what he had to say.” She took a deep breath before talking again, “I don’t know what you’ve gone through, Dr. Jones, and I’m not an expert on this, but I recognize the signs.”

It was the empathy in her voice that hit Martha the hardest as she tried to process what Hill was saying, and how close it hit home. Agent Hill didn’t do empathy. She was coolly efficient, always in control of the situation, and never one to back down. Her disagreements with Fury, though few and far between, were legendary. And yet, here she was, sitting in Martha’s lab, telling her something that she probably didn’t share with many people. Martha didn’t understand.

“Why?” she asked, slowly sitting down in her chair. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I’ve been there before. I’ve felt lost and scared and like everything was slipping away from me,” Hill explained. “I also remember feeling like it was the most terrifying thing in the world to admit what was happening to me and accept that I needed help.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Martha whispered, resisting the urge to cry. She wouldn’t, not in front of Hill, even if the other woman was just trying to help.

“Neither did I. But having somebody around who did helped.” Hill held out her hand, palm up. “It’s the first step that seems the hardest.”

Martha stared at the offered hand, trying to sort through her emotions. She was so used to handling things on her own, keeping her problems to herself was just second nature. But she felt so lost, so alone right now, trying to hold herself together and remain functional. She needed help. Sometimes you can’t make it on your own.

Hesitantly, she reached out and took Maria Hill’s hand and its implied offer of assistance.


	9. Chapter 9

Maria was wrong, Martha decided about a week later. It wasn’t the first step that was the hardest. It was the second, and third, and every step that followed that was the hardest, or at least that’s how it seemed.

She made an appointment with the therapist that Maria recommended, and he agreed to see her on short notice. He was already vetted by SHIELD, and a little extra digging showed that he had some experience with UNIT, too. Even then, she came close to talking herself out of going several times before finally working up the nerve to walk through the door. She’d faced down Daleks, the Master, and Loki, and yet sitting across from this man seemed harder than all of that combined.

Dr. Thornton was an older man, with close-cropped, curly grey-streaked black hair and evaluative brown eyes peering at Martha from behind rectangle glasses. He spoke with a faint Boston accent, almost too faint to hear except for the missing r’s breaking through as he briefly laid out the ground rules for their sessions.

“So, Martha,” he said, once he’d finished the introductions and the ground rules. “Tell me about why you’re here.”

“It’s going to sound like complete rubbish,” Martha warned, only stalling slightly.

He smiled, and the lines framing his face softened. “Tell me anyways,” he encouraged her. “Nothing you tell me is going to leave this room, remember?”

Martha took a deep breath and nodded. “About two years ago, when I was finishing up my last year of medical school...”

She delved into an abbreviated version of how she met the Doctor, before transitioning to the Year That Never Was. She couldn’t fully describe what she’d lived through that year, not even if she wanted to. But she tried, outlining the horrors she’d seen, the desperation that had fueled her, the good and the evil of that year that only a few were cursed to remember.

“I was doing fine, for the most part,” Martha explained once she’d finished telling Dr. Thornton about the Year, her voice rough. “I had a few nightmares, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I was healing. But after what happened with Loki,” she took a shuddering breath before continuing, “it’s like I’m reliving it, and I’ve lost all the progress that I’ve made in moving on.”

She felt exposed, sitting on this couch, sharing one of her deepest secrets with this stranger. Once again, she wondered if she was doing the right thing. If she was making the choice that would help her, and not just leave her in a worse place than she already was.

“That’s understandable, given what you’ve just described to me,” Dr. Thornton responded, putting down his pen and placing his notepad on the table beside him. He leaned forward and gave Martha a reassuring smile. “I’ve worked with many individuals diagnosed with PTSD, and almost all of their cases, no matter how different they are from each other, share that element. You’re not alone in this.”

He glanced at the clock before turning his attention back to Martha. “We’re almost out of time today, but I’d like to schedule an appointment in a few days so that we can discuss possible treatments,” he said, picking up his notepad and flipping to a new page.

“I can do that,” Martha answered, her voice quiet.

“Good. Before you go, there is something that you can start, however,” he said, writing something down that she couldn’t read. “From what you’ve told me, it sounds like you’ve been isolating yourself from your friends and family.” At Martha’s slow nod, he continued, “Start reconnecting with them. Don’t be afraid to use them as a support net. You don’t need to tell them everything, but trust them to be there to catch you. They’re more valuable than you might think they are.”

After finalizing a follow-up appointment in three days, Martha went to her favorite café to think. In the corner with a cup of Earl Grey, she reviewed the last few hours. She still felt on edge about the entire thing, but she was less afraid that Dr. Thornton was going to write her off. If he had, there had been no indication of it during their session.

Her mobile buzzed, and she fished it out from her pocket to read a text from Jane, letting her know that she and Darcy were having a bad science movie marathon and wondering if Martha would want to attend.

 _Start reconnecting with them_. Dr. Thornton’s words rang in her head as she read the text several times, before pressing the reply button.

 _When and where?_ Almost immediately after she hit Enter, her mobile buzzed again with Jane’s reply.

Later that night, the look on Jane’s face when she opened the door to Martha’s hesitant knock made Martha feel guilty about brushing off earlier attempts to hang out.

“Good, you came,” Jane said, stepping back so that Martha could come in. “Darcy’s getting the popcorn ready, and we have Netflix queued up and ready to go. Any preferences?”

It was a fun night. Jane and Martha wholeheartedly mocked the science behind “The Core,” while Darcy offered commentary on the less-than-original plot devices and threw popcorn at the screen. After that, they switched to Boggle, something that only Darcy could make a cutthroat sport. Martha stayed later than she’d originally planned, and when she finally did leave, with plans for brunch the next day, she felt lighter than she had in a long time

But the nightmares still came, and once again she fled to her couch and curled up underneath a blanket, only this time with a worn copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets clutched in her hand. Reconnecting didn’t just have to mean reconnecting with people, after all. She finally drifted back to sleep just as the sky began to lighten, her dreams shifting to more pleasant memories.

The afternoon, after saying goodbye to Jane and Darcy, Martha decided to go for a walk through Central Park, just to stretch her legs. Unlike the last time she’d been here, the park was mostly deserted, the cloudy weather having warned people away.

Martha found herself back at the bench overlooking the former site of Hoovertown. A few brave individuals defied the predicted rain and sat on the lawn, but it was eerily empty compared to last time. She’d been sitting there for roughly five minutes when the sound of a boot scuffing against ground behind her drew her attention.

“Didn’t you ever learn it’s rude to stalk people?” she asked, tilting her head back to look at Clint. “I thought I’d gotten that point across back in New Mexico.”

“I’m a slow learner,” Clint replied, sitting down next to her.

“Really? There’s a shocker.”

“Cute.”

“I try,” Martha retorted, before switching the subject. “So, is there any reason in particular you were stalking me? Because like I said before, it’s rude. And quite creepy.”

Clint shrugged, answering, “I don’t suppose you’d buy the ‘I happened to be in the area’ excuse.” At Martha’s eye roll, he snorted. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“You’re stalling,” Martha pointed out with a raised eyebrow. “And not very well, I might add.”

He sobered and looked down at his hands. “I guess I just wanted to see you.”

“I do have a mobile. And an email address that I seem to recall you using in the not-so-distant past,” Martha pointed out sensibly. “You could have contacted me that way.”

“Okay, I get it, stalking is bad and I shouldn’t do it. Email is better. You’ve made your point,” Clint said with a wince.

“Just remember that for next time.”

They lapsed into silence, neither sure what to say. This was the first time since the attempted invasion that they had been together for a reason other than work, and Martha found herself at a loss what to she should do. They just sat there, staring out at the lawn in front of them with nothing to say.

“I never did apologize for calling you ‘Doc’ back in you lab,” Clint finally broke the silence, turning his head to look at Martha. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry about that, Martha.”

“Apology accepted,” Martha answered quietly, leaning back against the bench. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you lately. It’s been... it’s been a rough few weeks.”

Clint let out a short laugh. “You don’t need to apologize for that, since I’ve been doing the same thing.” He paused, before continuing, “I think it’s been a rough few weeks for everybody.”

“That’s probably the understatement of the year,” Martha said, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth despite the subject matter.

“I don’t know, I can think of a few more. Tasha’s definition of a quick workout, for one.”

Martha’s smile widened at the thought. She looked up at the darkening sky and stood up with a sigh. “Not that I don’t mind the company, but I think I better head back to my flat, unless I want to be stuck in a romcom cliché and get caught out in the rain.” She blushed, realizing that somehow she’d managed to bypass her brain to mouth filter.

“Cliché, huh?” he asked, getting to his feet and smirking at her. “Now why would you say that?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Martha lied, trying and failing to keep her flaming cheeks under control.

“You’re a shit liar, Jones.”

Martha refused to dignify the comment with an answer. They walked out of the park together, not talking until they reached the edge closest to Martha’s flat.

“So, are we okay, Martha?” Clint asked, looking at her with concern written all over his face.

Martha smiled at him, reached out and took his hand. “Of course we are,” she answered, giving his hand a squeeze. “Just call next time you want to talk.”

He laughed, and they parted, going their separate ways. It started raining when she was less than two blocks away from her flat, and she rushed to get there before she was completely soaked. She’d just stepped inside when her mobile buzzed with a text message from Clint.

_This enough of a romcom cliché for you?_

“Arse,” Martha muttered, a smile on her face.

~*~*~

Two steps forward, one step back. That’s how things seemed to go for the next few weeks. Therapy with Dr. Thornton helped. He’d started her on cognitive-behavioral therapy, working on isolating triggers and exploring why they made her react the way that they did. Most of the triggers were small and almost illogical in their connections, but they were relatively easy to identify and talk about. Others, like the sound of the Master’s distinctive four-part beat, inevitably sent her into a panic attack. Her nightmares were slowly starting to become less frequent, but the ones she did have were just as brutal as the ones she’d been having before starting therapy, if not more.

She broke the news to Steve about her diagnosis over dinner at his flat in Brooklyn, after her second appointment with Dr. Thornton. He didn’t seem all that surprised.

“You suspected?” she asked, curling up in the worn armchair in his living room that she’d long since claimed as her own.

“I think we all did,” Steve answered, looking a little uncomfortable. Despite the fact that he’d been unfrozen for over six months, he was still very much a man from another era. “You just seemed...different after everything.”

“‘Scattered’ is apparently the word Coulson used.” It was better than broken, which was how Martha was still describing herself.

“He did say something along those lines when I went to go see him,” Steve commented, almost too quietly for Martha. He changed the subject to baseball, something he was still trying and failing to interest Martha in.

It wasn’t until later that she began putting the pieces together and realized what Coulson had been doing. He’d been ringing the alarms, doing his best to help her, in apparent repayment for saving his life back on the Helicarrier. She didn’t mention to it when she went to see him, however, and instead poked fun at him for his Captain America memorbilia collection. It wasn’t until she was ready to leave that she finally said, “Thank you.” She didn’t specify for what, but from the look on his face, he knew. Maybe one day she’d tell him about why she called him Phil.

Martha began to hang out with her mates on a regular basis again, no longer just commuting between her office and her flat. When Darcy heard Martha call them her “mates,” the younger girl hadn’t stopped commenting on how awesomely British Martha sounded, much to Jane’s amusement.

She introduced Bobbi to the pair, and they began to have more girls’ nights out, occasionally crashed by Natasha and Maria. Underneath the restrained and unimpressed agent that Martha had known until recently, Maria turned out to be blunt, occasionally foulmouthed, and possessing of a seemingly magical ability to avoid hangovers.

She finally found out why Natasha had seemed so familiar when they met. Roughly two and a half months after the invasion, they had gone out to a karaoke bar Maria had discovered. While Bobbi and Jane did their best to sing “She Blinded Me with Science,” and Darcy oh-so-helpfully recording the entire thing, Natasha leaned over to Martha.

“This sure is a long way from La Scala,” she said.

Martha paused, her eyes widening. “That was you?” she whispered, suddenly placing Natasha’s face in an incident that she and the Doctor had run into while stopping in Milan to visit the opera. There had been Krynoids, among other things, but it had occurred right before the Family, and Martha had relegated it to a corner of her mind.

That had occurred in 1981.

“Like I said, it’s a long way since then,” Natasha replied with a shit eating grin. “Next time you see the Doctor, tell him I said hello. And ask him what the hell is the deal with the fez.”

If Martha was taking steps forward on reconnecting with friends and making new ones, her current inability to leave her job was a step back. Despite telling Fury that she would resign, she was still working for SHIELD and growing increasingly unhappy about it. While she enjoyed the work, she didn’t trust Fury, not after Phase Two and his lying about Coulson. But there was so much work still to be done, most of which Martha didn’t feel comfortable leaving. She mentioned this to Dr. Thornton in the same week that Natasha had reminded her of La Scala.

Dr. Thornton waited a few seconds after she’d finished before asking, “Have you given any thought to what you might do after you resign from SHIELD?”

“Some,” Martha answered. “But not a whole lot. I’ve had other things on my mind.”

“When you do think about leaving SHIELD, what are your feelings when considering what happens next?”

Martha paused, considering the question. “I feel terrified,” she said slowly. “I’ve always had a plan. I’ve always known what comes next. I knew I wanted to be a doctor, so I planned for that after entering university. After medical school, UNIT approached me. But now, I don’t know. And that scares me.”

“Do you think that might have something to do with why you’re delaying your departure from SHIELD?”

Martha didn’t have an answer for him. She thought about that question for the rest of the afternoon, turning it over in her head. As a general principle, Martha didn’t act without a plan. There were a few notable exceptions—traveling with the Doctor, for example—but she liked having a plan. It made her feel comfortable, even safe. But she didn’t have a plan for her post-SHIELD life, and that terrified her. Maybe Dr. Thornton was right. Maybe that was part of why she kept finding it hard to move on from the attack.

The next afternoon, Martha stood in front of Fury’s desk at SHIELD’s New York base. He sat behind his desk, reading her resignation letter, his face unreadable.

“So you’ve made your decision,” he finally said, placing the paper down and looking up at Martha.

She nodded. “I have, sir. It just took a little longer than I expected.”

She’d written her two weeks’ notice the night before, after deliberating for hours. She still felt uncertain and slightly terrified of what the future held, but she’d made her decision. Two weeks should be enough to wrap up her role in the autopsy project and hand things over to her second-in-command.

“Any plans for the future?” he asked. She can see the calculations running through his head, wondering if there’s a way to somehow bring her back into the fold. Natasha had mentioned that SHIELD’s recruiting her had been a coup, and she didn’t think Fury would be keen to lose her so easily. He may not have a contingency plan now, but she wouldn’t put it past him to set something in place to draw her back.

“None at the moment,” she answered. “Although I believe I’m long overdue for a holiday.”

“It will be a shame to lose you, Dr. Jones,” Fury replied, standing up and offering his hand for Martha to shake. “Best of luck in your future endeavors.”

“You too,” Martha said, shaking his hand and leaving the office for her own to break the news to her team. She spent the rest of the day putting her affairs in order and making arrangements with Dr. Zulawski to begin transferring responsibilities the following week.

Surprisingly, no one tried to contact her that day. Either they were giving her space or, however unlikely, the news of her departure hadn’t started making the gossip rounds. She had lunch scheduled tomorrow with Jane, Darcy, and Bobbi, where she would let them know. After that, she’d start telling the others.

That night, though, she had no real plans other than Skyping her mum and sister. They supported her decision and begged her to visit. Martha told them she would consider it, but at the moment she was making no concrete plans. By the time they were done, there was a message in her inbox from Jack, letting her know that Nick Fury was an idiot for letting her go.

She was in the middle of writing back when someone knocked at her door. Frowning, she stood up and carefully walked over to it. Normally, the building’s doorman would ring up to let her know she had a visitor, but there had been no buzz on the intercom. She peered through the peephole and sighed when she saw who it was. Of course he would manage to slip into her building unnoticed.

“Hello,” she greeted Clint, opening the door. He was dressed in civilian clothes—a snug t-shirt and jeans—and looked nervous. “Any particular reason you decided to sneak into my building?”

“I like a challenge,” he answered, a smile briefly flitting across his face before vanishing. “Can I come in?”

She stepped back, letting him inside, and was suddenly very conscious of the fact that she was wearing pajama pants and a tank top, leaving the scar on her left arm exposed. It was too late and too hot out to cover up, however, making it visible to Clint for the first time. His eyes lingered on it briefly before moving her face as she closed the door behind him.

She didn’t know where exactly she and Clint stood. They had been rebuilding their relationship, but barely. Neither of them mentioned the email he’d sent before Loki’s invasion, and Martha still wasn’t sure if she had been reading too much into it—or if that even mattered anymore. She didn’t know if they had a friendship with an element of flirting, like what she had with Jack, or if there might be something more there. She wouldn’t deny that there was attraction on her part, but she wasn’t sure he felt the same. She wished she knew; the last thing she wanted was a repeat of her crush on the Doctor, on top of everything else.

“Rumor has it that you’re leaving SHIELD,” Clint said, getting right to the point. “Supposedly you handed Fury your two weeks’ this afternoon.”

“In a stunningly rare occurrence, the office rumor mill is one hundred percent accurate,” Martha answered, her palms sweaty.

“Why?”

That was the million dollar question, wasn’t it? “A lot of things,” Martha said quietly. “Part of it is related to what happened with Loki, but the other part...Do you remember the conversation we had back in New Mexico? About what our past selves would think of us?”

“You talked about why you wanted to become a doctor,” he replied immediately. “You said that you wanted to help people.

Martha nodded. “I’m not happy with what I’m doing with SHIELD, Clint,” she answered. “It’s interesting, yeah, and I’m contributing something, but it’s not making me happy. I can’t be in a place where I feel that way.” Not again. She’d walked away from the TARDIS for similar reasons.

“Are you going to stay in New York?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I could end up anywhere.” She gave him a shaky smile. “I’m not really sure of anything at this point, except that I need time to sort things out.”

“Would I be among the things needing sorting out?” Clint asked seriously and Martha felt the bottom of her stomach drop.

“That depends,” she answered, doing her best to sound calm and taking a step closer to him. She hoped that she was reading the situation correctly. The look he was giving her was almost impossible to break down: nervousness, longing, fear, something that she was afraid to try to identify. She wondered if she looked the same way to him.

“On what?”

Martha was the type of person who liked to think things through, to have a plan in place so that she didn’t wander blindly through the unknown. She’d always been that way. But there were times, she discovered, that taking the leap without knowing what was next was necessary. Her leaving SHIELD, for example, or traveling with the Doctor. She was about to add one more thing to that list.

“On this,” Martha answered, taking the final step and leaning up to kiss Clint gently on the lips. He froze for half a second before slipping his warm, calloused hands around her waist and pulling her closer, deepening the kiss. Finally, air became a problem, and they broke apart, both breathing heavily and leaning into the other.

“So, does that help sort things out?” Clint whispered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. He still looked uncertain, but his eyes were dark with desire, sending shivers down Martha’s spine.

“It’s a start,” she answered, enjoying the feeling of his arms around her. She still felt scared, unsure if she was making the right choice or if this would come back to bite her in the arse, like it had with the Doctor and Tom. But for now, it was a leap she was willing to take.

Besides, what was life without a little risk?

With that in mind, she leaned up for another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you wondering about Natasha, I'm borrowing a bit of comic canon, where part of the process that turned her into spy also slowed down her ageing. I'm also slightly fascinated and terrified by the thought of her and River Song ever meeting.
> 
> In my head, Hazel is played by Michelle Tran; Bobbi is Katee Sackhoff; and Dr. Thornton is Giancarlo Esposito.
> 
> There will most likely be more of this verse at some point in the future. There are more stories left to tell here, but this seemed like the right ending for this story. Please don't hate me for leaving it there.


End file.
